


That the Older Should Regress

by HugeAlienPie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Boys in dresses, De-Aged Derek, Families of Choice, Intercrural Sex, Kidnapping, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Danny Mahealani, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mostly Fluff, Post-Season/Series 03B, Racist Language, Toddlers, Unconventional Families, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:15:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a short story," Danny tells Jordan. "<em>My</em> idiot boyfriend antagonized a crazy witch. <em>Your</em> idiot boyfriend jumped in front of the spell."</p><p>One angry witch + Stiles' mouthy streak + Derek's martyr complex = Derek Hale, age four and a half.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1: The Martyr and the Spark

**Author's Note:**

> This work will update on Fridays. Everything's written and is at the beta's for a final polish.
> 
> I started this during the post-3B hiatus and finished it in the early days of S4, when we were just encountering teen!Derek. This led to a weird mixing of canon adherence/divergence. Assume a future in which anyone who was dead at the end of 3B continues to be dead; Isaac's back; and no one knows Parrish is in any way supernatural. Also assume that Derek and Braeden had a good, healthy relationship before amicably parting ways.
> 
> Title, oddly enough, is a paraphrased quote from the _[Lewis](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0874608/)_ episode "And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea."

There's a pile of clothes on the forest floor where Derek stood ten seconds ago. Sitting in that pile of clothes, drowning in the leather jacket and blue t-shirt, dark-wash jeans puddled around his ankles, they find--

"My name is Derek St. Andrew Hale, I'm four and a half years old, and I like to draw."

Kira says "Aww" so loudly she startles the birds in a nearby tree.

Isaac snickers. "St. Andrew?"

"It was his father's last name before he married Talia, and it's beautiful," Stiles snaps back in an angry whisper.

"At least we've dealt with this before," Kira says, ever the optimist.

"Four-year-old Derek's going to be a _lot_ different than 16-year-old Derek," Lydia counters.

"But no Kate," Isaac says, and everyone nods a fervent _a-fucking-men to that_.

Danny moves Stiles aside and steps into the center of the circle they've instinctively formed around Derek. He crouches to Derek's level. "Hi, Derek," he says. "I'm Danny. I'm 19, and I play trumpet." Danny offers Derek his hand, wrist forward. Stiles' insides do something weird and twisty at the sight, and he blocks out the sensation as best he can.

Delighted by Danny's knowledge of werewolf etiquette, Derek sniffs Danny's wrist and then looks up, wide-eyed. "Magic!" he whispers.

Danny grins. "That's right. Stiles and I do magic."

"What's a Stiles?" Derek's face scrunches up. Stiles forces himself not to find it adorable.

He steps forward and crouches beside Danny. "I am. It's my name." He offers his own wrist, and while it passes muster, Derek's clearly not as smitten with Stiles as with Danny. Even as a four-year-old, Derek's loyalties are clear.

Before Stiles has time to say it's probably a bad idea, Scott bounds into the circle. "Hey, buddy! I'm Scott. What do I smell like?"

Derek takes a deep breath--and shrieks. "Wolf!" he screeches, rushing around to hide behind Danny's legs.

Scott's face falls. "That's right," he says, "I'm a werewolf, like you. We're pack." He proudly adds, "I'm your alpha."

And then, no shit, tiny Derek growls. It's supposed to be threatening, but Stiles' heart turns into a puddle of goo. Scott frowns like he'd offered Derek a puppy and had it turned away. "You're not my alpha!" Derek yells. "My mommy is my alpha! I want my mommy!"

It feels like being punched in the gut, and Stiles sees a lot of desperate glances being exchanged _._ They went through _this_ the last time, too, albeit with less screaming. Of course Derek wants his family. Wants the one thing they can't give him. For a flash of a second Stiles is so mad at Cora and Malia. They did what they needed to do, and he gets that, yet he can't help thinking this would be so much easier with someone of Derek's blood on-hand.

Danny gives Derek a smile that relaxes him slightly. "Your mom had to go away for a while," he says, "but you can hang out with us as long as you want."

Derek sniffles and looks around. "All of you?" he asks, sounding overwhelmed.

"Yeah," Stiles says, nodding. "Our pack."

One by one, they step forward to introduce themselves and let Derek scent them. He won't look the Scott or Isaac in the eye. Lydia receives a genuinely confused version of the standard Derek Hale "how is this my life?" face. Then he sneezes on Kira's arm and tells her she smells "itchy." She coos at him. The horrified look on Scott's face makes Stiles' entire year.

"Okay," Scott says at last in his take-chargiest voice, "so Stiles and Danny will take him for now, right?"

Stiles leaps to his feet. "What? Why? Is this some 'queer dudes are better nurturers' shit, Scott, because I swear to God--"

"What are you talking about?" Scott's eyebrows do a squiggly thing where they go both up and down. "I mean because Danny is Derek's best friend. Even kid-Derek knows that."

Stiles turns to peek at Derek, who's crawled into Danny's lap and is, bafflingly, weaving flowers into his hair. Stiles doesn't know where the flowers came from. Danny is bearing it with his usual boundless patience. Boundless patience is an absolute must when dating Stiles.

"Oh, yeah," Stiles says sheepishly. "That sounds good." He flips Isaac off when he snorts and has a complete internal freak-out about fostering a toddler werewolf.

"Great," Scott says, slapping Stiles' back. "Good thing this is happening during summer, huh?" It _is_. Stiles can't imagine how they would've dealt with this with half the pack away at college. Then again, if they'd been gone, this might not've happened at all."Does anyone have clothes that'll fit him?" Scott asks.

"There'll be something at my house," Danny says, eyes fixed on Derek's tiny feet. Stiles squeezes his shoulder, and he sends up a smile, pinched but grateful.

"Okay." Scott nods. "Isaac, I want you to track the witches."

"They took off that way," Lydia says, pointing generally northeast. Isaac salutes Scott and takes off.

Scott looks at Danny. "Danny, I hate to dump this on you, but once Derek's settled, get on other tracking methods. Maybe there are phone records or credit card receipts to tell us where they're going."

"But we don't know who they _are,_ " Stiles protests. "Did anybody hear names?"

Lydia sneers. "Coven names. Brünnhilde. Hela."

Stiles waves his hands. " _Witches_."

Danny holds up his hand before this degrades into another of Stiles' witches-versus-Druids rants. "Without names, this is nearly impossible. It's looking for the needle in the entire hayfield."

Scott nods and squeezes Danny's shoulder. "I know," he says, his voice taking on that slight ring it gets when he's alphaing someone. "It might be a total waste of time. But it's kind of the only thing we have to go on right now."

Danny caves, because no one in the pack can resist Scott's big-eyed, "I believe in you" school of leadership. "Yeah, okay," Danny says with a sigh. "I'll look into it."

Scott beams. "Great. I'll have Deaton clear some time for us. He might know something about the spell they used." He turns toward Kira and Lydia and smiles. "You guys can either come with me or go to Kira's and start looking for mythology that might apply."

Kira grins back and squeezes his arm. "You know you're my ride," she says. Lydia shrugs and follows.

Stiles wants to yell with pride. That's his Scotty. They've all grown so much, but no one's progress makes him happier than Scott's evolution from a dude who couldn't plot his way out of a Harlequin romance to an alpha true in every sense, a guy with leadership and strategy oozing out of his pores.

As the pack disperses to its assignments, Danny smiles at Derek. "Ready to go, little man?"

Derek scowls thunderously at Danny. Oh, sure. _Now_ he digs his heels in. Now that the people with superstrength are gone. "Go? Like, go somewhere? With you?"

"Yeah," Danny says, smile firmly in place, though Stiles hears confusion in his tone. "To my house for a while, and then to hang out with Stiles' dad. Does that sound fun?"

There are crossed arms. Tiny crossed werewolf arms, and Stiles doesn't think he's going to survive this. "What's the password?" Derek demands.

Unreasoning panic wells in Stiles. _Of course_ Derek's family had a password. And he won't go with anyone who doesn't know it, and they're going to have to leave a four-year-old kid alone in the woods and--

"Goodnight, moon," Danny says, and Stiles forgets how to close his mouth for a minute. Danny knows the password. Danny knows the Hale family "don't take rides from strangers" password that hasn't been used in at least ten years. He's been seriously underestimating how deep the Danny-Derek bromance extends.

Derek beams and leaps from Danny's lap to the ground, tripping over his clothes in the process. His nose wrinkles. "These don't fit."

Danny and Stiles smother laughter in coughs as Danny stands and scoops Derek up, Stiles collecting his too-large pants and shoes. "We'll find something better at my house," he says. "Promise."

As they walk, Stiles pulls out his phone and sends two texts. Danny's sister replies first.

 **KIMMMMY:** _theyre not home_

Three seconds later the phone chimes again with Dad's reply.

 **The Man:** _As long as you didn't adopt a baby werewolf, I'm sure it's fine._

Stiles stares at his phone, rubs his forehead. "How does he _do_ that?" he mutters.

 **TO The Man:** _define baby_

 **TO The Man:** _define adopt_

 **The Man:** _Seriously, Stiles?_

Stiles is chuckling at the message when they reach the clearing and dread slams into him. Usually, Roscoe is the sweetest sight in the world when supernatural shenanigans are in play. Because usually it means either the threat had been neutralized and they're heading home for much-needed sleep and/or first aid or they're running for their lives and the Jeep offers a shot at escape. Now he grabs Danny's arm. "We can't take him in the Jeep. The thing's a death trap!"

Danny side-eyes him and hikes Derek up on his hip. "I've been saying that for months. You never worry if it's safe when _I'm_ the precious cargo."

"You're less fragile than a four-year-old," Stiles scoffs.

"A four-year-old _werewolf_?"

"And I don't have a car seat!" Stiles twists his fingers around each other, eyes darting back and forth as though one might appear in the surrounding trees.

Danny stops and turns to him. "Stiles, breathe," he says.

A tiny palm presses to Stiles' cheek. "Breathe," Derek says, and, seriously, Stiles is going to have _words_ with whoever installed these fucking hormones. He smiles shakily.

"I know it's an alien concept, but we'll be fine if you drive slowly and carefully," Danny says.

Stiles mock-growls at him. Derek shrieks with laughter and swats at Stiles. "You be nice to my Danny!"

"Yeah, Stiles, be nice," Danny says, grinning, as he goes around to the passenger side.

"Oh, I'll be nice," Stiles says, throwing in a lascivious wink over the top of the Jeep. "Later on I'll show you just how nice I can be."

Danny blushes, but when Derek says, "Daddy says never wait to show someone you care," Danny laughs so hard he almost bangs the kid into the door.

At moments like this, Stiles misses the old days, when the worst thing he had to worry about was what hard surface Derek was going to slam his head into next.

*

Kimmy's on the porch when they pull into the Mahealani driveway, her index finger raised in the all-clear signal. Danny's parents _still_ don't know about the supernatural and their son's connection to it, but Kimmy found out when she got caught in the middle of a fight with territorial naiads (also, as it happens, the inciting incident of Stiles and Danny's relationship). She's declined deeper involvement with the pack and its business but, annoying as she is, she's a fantastic ally, covering time and again when Danny or Stiles (or both. Usually both) get caught in catastrophe.

Stiles won't call this a catastrophe, per se. Kid-Derek is cute, affectionate, and at least 80 percent less likely to try to kill them than their usual opponents. Still, Danny's parents _cannot_ see this. They may not be read in on werewolves and their ilk, but they'd notice a kid named Derek who looks precisely how you'd expect a younger version of their son's best friend to look.

The instant they're close enough, Kimmy darts forward, making grabby hands and bizarre gurgling sounds at Derek. His eyes widen and he draws back, but he also kinda looks like he's…checking her out, which, creepy, because toddler. "Give me the baabyyyy," she says in a voice that makes Stiles rethink his position on selling children to the circus.

He slaps her hands away. "Oh my god are you insane? Don't wave your hands in the baby werewolf's face! He'll bite them off!"

"No he won't," Kimmy scoffs. "Will you, baby?"

"My name is Derek," he informs her imperiously, then ruins his moment by burying his face in Danny's neck.

Kimmy stares for a second and then squeals. "Oh my _god_!"

"Right?" Stiles agrees. Derek's growling softly, and it's kind of the cutest thing ever.

"Hey," Danny says, "he needs clothes. And do you think there's a car seat?"

Kimmy gives him a hard look. "Duh, there's a car seat."

Danny nods, lips pinched. "Right. Know where it is?"

"Basement, I think. I'll go look. Nice flowers, by the way." Danny scowls but make no move to remove the flowers in his hair.

They go inside and part ways, Kimmy to the basement, Danny and Stiles to the spare bedroom in the second floor.

Danny's house will never be on _Hoarders_ , but only because his dad threatened to take the kids and leave when Danny was seven. Danny claims not to remember the incident that made his mom paranoid about keeping everything, just that it happened right after they brought Kimmy home from the hospital. After a lot of therapy, his mom agreed to confine her crap to one area in the basement and one unused bedroom upstairs. She honors the agreement, but the mere mention of those rooms makes Danny come over pale and shaky, so the prospect of stepping inside one has to have his nerves cranked to eleven.

Stiles curls his hand around Danny's arm, desperate to give whatever comfort he can. Danny gives him a grateful smile and opens the door.

The condition of the room doesn't bear dwelling on. It's a good-sized room and fairly well-organized for what is, essentially, a junkyard. There's even a laminated chart hanging from a hook by the door, showing what's where, a detail that alternately amuses and horrifies Stiles. Forcing his brain to block out the looming piles of detritus, he follows Danny to a closet in the back of the room. "Okay, buddy," he tells Derek, "let's find you some clothes."

Danny and Stiles whip through Danny's old clothes. They try to involve Derek as much as possible, but he acts curiously detached. Stiles is trying to interest him in a Wolverine t-shirt ("Come on, dude; what werewolf doesn't like Wolverine?") when Kimmy appears in the doorway. "Hey, losers," she says, slouching against the door frame and doing a funny shaking thing to her dress that makes it flounce at the bottom. "I found a car seat, a booster seat, and a diaper bag."

"I don't wear diapers!" Derek says indignantly. "I use the big boy potty." Even as he says it, Stiles notices he's giving Kimmy the same weird once-over, with a look in his eyes that Stiles can only call wistful. A germ of an idea takes root in his head, and he pushes to his feet. "Good for you!" he enthuses, crossing the room and motioning for Danny to follow. "A diaper bag can hold lots of things, though, so we'll take it anyway." They stop in front of Kimmy. She coos and makes stupid faces at Derek, who seems to be over his fear of her and into "not impressed" territory. "Your old clothes are in here too, right?" Stiles asks her.

Kimmy's eyes widen. "Oh, this I _have_ to see."

Danny brings Derek to the other closet. This search takes longer, because almost the entirety of Kimmy's past wardrobe is here, but eventually he finds dresses that look about Derek's size. Derek leans so far forward to grab them that he almost tumbles out of Danny's arms to the floor.

Derek chooses ten sundresses, and an eleventh to wear right away, a sleeveless (and shapeless, the way most kid dresses seem to be) thing in black and green stripes. From the almost reverent way Derek touches it once it's on him, Stiles suspects they're going to see a lot of it. He hopes to god they don't end up needing that many dresses.

They pick out white bobby socks with lace trim, a pair of Danny's sky-blue Converse and kiddie combat boots, pink pajamas with white sheep, and ladybug barrettes, because Kimmy claims they're an absolute necessity, despite the shortness of Derek's hair.

Danny and Stiles load everything into the Yaris, agreeing they'll come back for the Jeep later, when there isn't a kid to transport. Kimmy holds Derek and laughs the whole time they try to install the car seat.

Stiles climbs into the passenger seat and looks over his shoulder at Derek. Then he faces front and sighs, slumping against the door. He runs his hand over his face and says, "Okay, parenthood is exhausting." Danny clenches his jaw. Stiles sits upright again, feeling like an absolute heel. "Oh, shit, dude, I'm sorry."

Danny taps his index finger on the steering wheel. "It's fine."

"No, it's not, and I don't--I know it's not a joke to you, and I don't mean to--"

"Stiles," Danny says tersely, "it's _fine_." His voice sounds the opposite of fine, but Stiles knows better than to try to have this argument in the car, in front of the kid. Stiles swallows hard and tries to concentrate on the road, rather than on the sensation of his insides turning to ash and lead.

By the time they pull up outside his house, his brain is running in seven different directions. Danny's mad. Have to apologize for that. Phone battery's almost dead. Have to recharge it if they want the GPS to look for the witches. Derek needs a place to sleep. Unless he bunks in with Stiles, which seems like a quick way to get the kid crushed. Wait--can the kid get crushed? Are werewolves werewolfy from the get-go, or do the superpowers take a while to kick in?

First things first: explaining this to Dad. He should be okay with it. Dad adores kids. He and Mom wanted at least two more. Dad's gonna be all over Derek, doting on him like the grandson he doesn't think he's getting ( _shit, don't think about that now_ ). Heck, he might even take Derek to the station like he did when Stiles was little, pass him off as Danny's cousin, let the deputies--

"Oh, fu--dge." Startled by his train of thought, Stiles lets the door go too soon; it slams with a bang that makes Danny jump.

Danny glares at him over Derek's head. "What?" he hisses.

"We're gonna have to tell Parrish." He considers it a mark of maturity. The Stiles of old would've said "someone" had to tell Jordan. The Stiles of today acknowledges that "someone" means him and Danny.

A voice up the hall robs him of his well-earned sense of adulthood. "Tell me what?"

Like the devil, apparently, speak of Jordan Parrish and he shall appear, Stiles' dad at his heels. Stiles groans and exchanges panicked looks with Danny. "I'm as stumped as you are," Danny's face says, which reassures Stiles. "Uh. Heeey, Jordan."

Jordan smiles. "Hey, Stiles. Hi, Danny." He cocks his head. "Cute kid. You got cousins in town or--"

Again vindicated; again deprived. Because Jordan gets a closer look at the child in Danny's arms and rears back, thumping into Dad, who steadies him with a firm grip on his shoulder. Jordan's hand covers his mouth for a second. Then he lowers it and steps infinitesimally closer. "Derek?"

"Sorry, dude," Stiles says softly.

"Not again," Dad mutters.

Derek is staring at Jordan. His eyes, less fraught than the adult version but no less beautiful or intense, are wide and awed. "Who are you?" he whispers.

Jordan steps forward with a choked laugh. "I'm Jordan."

Derek stretches out his hands, beckoning Jordan closer. As soon as he's in range, one chubby palm lands on each cheek, and Derek plants a smacking kiss on his lips. "Pretty," he declares. Jordan blinks and sways, looking literally frozen between a smile and a breakdown.

Derek peers past Jordan at Dad. "Who's that?"

"That's Sheriff Stilinski," Danny says.

Derek's eyes widen. "Am I in trouble?"

Danny kisses his hair. "No, you're fine."

"Are _you_ in trouble?"

Dad snorts. "We'll see." He steps forward, clearly itching to reach for Derek.

"Hold out your wrist," Stiles tells him, demonstrating with his own arm.

"My wrist?" Dad asks, even as he's stretching his arm toward Derek.

"Yeah, it--it's one way werewolves introduce each other. Scent's pretty concentrated at the pulse point, and it's way less invasive than cramming your nose in somebody's neck, you know?"

Derek sniffs Dad's wrist and then looks at Stiles. "He smells like you."

"He's my dad." Stiles grins proudly, because he has the _best dad_ , who doesn't look like he's on the verge of killing Stiles for getting them into this mess. Score!

"He doesn't smell like magic," Derek says, forehead crinkling adorably.

"No, I, uh, think I got that from my mom," Stiles says.

Derek looks around. "Can I smell _her_ wrist?" Stiles and his father look everywhere but at each other, while Danny and Jordan generously pretend not to notice the sudden wetness of their eyes.

"Why don't we sit?" Danny suggests, jerking his chin toward the kitchen. Dad and Jordan kind of prop each other up on the way.

As they settle, Derek and Jordan keep staring at each other, which is vaguely creepy. For the rest of the pack, this is a minor annoyance at worst. They've grown fiercely protective of Derek even at his normal age; they'll gladly do whatever his younger self needs. But Jordan's facing the very real fear that the guy he loves is _gone_. Having Derek here-but-not can only make it worse. Stiles slides his chair closer to Danny.

Dad pulls a thick stack of papers from the recycling bin (one of Stiles' term papers, he thinks) and a handful of markers from the junk drawer and sets them in front of Derek. Derek looks from the supplies to Jordan, then pulls paper and markers close and starts coloring, lost to the world. Dad sits, puts on his Serious Face, and says, "Stiles, what did you do this time?"

Stiles scratches the back of his neck with one hand and touches Derek's head with the other. "Uh, long story, actually."

Dad crosses his arms. "We're not going anywhere."

Danny rolls his eyes. "It's a short story," he says, looking at Jordan. " _My_ idiot boyfriend antagonized a crazy witch. _Your_ idiot boyfriend jumped in front of the spell."

"I didn't _antagonize_ her, jeez," Stiles says. "We were fighting them. What was I going to do, invite her for tea?"

"You didn't have to goad the one with the temper!"

"Uh, yeah I did. It's called throwing her off her game."

It's funny how things happen. One minute Stiles is having a perfectly valid argument with his boyfriend; the next, they each have a hand over their mouths. A tiny werewolf hand. "Don't fight!" Derek says, and everyone says Derek was never supposed to be alpha, but he's sure as shit trying to alpha them right now.

Jordan sniggers helplessly; Stiles and Danny stare at each other over Derek's head; Dad snorts. When Stiles cuts him a wounded glance, he shakes his head. "I've been waiting a long time for this moment, kid," he says, clapping Stiles on the shoulder as he stands to get beer for Jordan and himself.

"I don't care what happened or why," Jordan says. He holds out a finger, and Derek captures it with his whole hand. Jordan's breath hitches; the moment is in equal measure heartwarming and heartbreaking, and it seems to last forever. "I'm not interested in blame. I just want to know how we fix it."

Danny gives Jordan's free hand a brief squeeze. "This is what we do best. Isaac and I are tracking the witches. The others are combing through our lore and spell books. And hopefully Scott can get Dr. Deaton involved, too."

Jordan's gaze flicks to Stiles. "Your teacher?" Stiles nods. "Der--we've talked about him. There are...trust issues there, I think? I mean, more than his usual ones."

Stiles snorts. "Uh, yeah, dude," he says. "I mean, I put my life in Deaton's hands on a semi-regular basis, and I don't trust him farther'n I can throw him." Dad looks disturbed by this revelation as he comes back to the table, which is, great, another thing to deal with later. "But he swore oaths to the h-a-l-e pack, and he'll have to play fair with this little guy because of them."

Jordan nods. "Okay. That'll have to be good enough for now. What happens next?"

Stiles sits back in his chair and exhales sharply. It's a great question--one they've avoided looking at so far.

"You'll need to call BHCC," Danny says like he's just thought of it, which maybe he has. Stiles sure hasn't remembered that Derek has an actual job now, teaching ESL at the community college. "I don't know how long this'll take to fix, but it probably won't be by Monday, and they'll need time to find a sub."

"Right. Okay." Jordan nods. "Wait. Why me?"

"Dude, you're his emergency contact on, like, everything," Stiles says. "Didn't you know?" From the startled look on Jordan's face, he's guessing the answer is no.

"If it goes on too long, we'll have to agree on a cover story for how we lost Derek and gained a baby," Dad says. "But saying he's at a training in...Sacramento? should hold us for a few days."

Stiles frowns. "Werewolf training?"

Dad rolls his eyes. "Teacher training. For the licensure he's working so hard for?"

Right. That.

"I think we need to talk to Cora," Danny says.

"Agreed," Dad says. "Stiles, can you set up a Skype session or something?"

"Sure. For tonight, if she can. Baltra's, what, an hour ahead?"

"Two," Jordan says. With obvious reluctance, he frees his finger from Derek's grip and stands. "I'm...I think I'll head home for a while. Get a couple hours of sleep." He nods at Dad. "Sheriff."

"You can take a few days off, Parrish," Dad tells him. "It's quiet enough; Montez or Gaffney can switch with you."

"Thank you, sir," he says with genuine gratitude, "but I think I need normal for this." He looks at his toddlerfied boyfriend, who's staring up at him like he hung the galaxy, and snorts. "As normal as things get around here."

Stiles smiles, equal parts rueful and empathetic. "Life in Beacon Hills, dude."

"Yeah. Uh, let me know when the Skype call is, okay? I'll come back if I can."

Stiles nods. "Sure thing."

Dad raises a finger. "Hang on. We haven't addressed the most important question." When the others stare blankly at him, he rolls his eyes and points at Derek. "Where's he staying?"

Stiles exchanges a guilty look with Danny. "Well, Dad..."

"Seriously, Stiles?"

"Who else can take him? He's snappy and territorial around other werewolves; he's allergic to Kira; and god help us if Lydia Martin has to take care of a kid."

Dad looks at Danny. "He seems pretty attached to you."

Danny looks back flatly. "Would you like to explain this to my parents, Sheriff?"

Dad huffs and turns his gaze on Jordan. Jordan's jaw clenches. "If you tell me it's an order, sir, I'll do it. But I'd prefer not to keep my de-aged boyfriend in my tiny apartment."

Dad looks both abashed at having put his deputy in such an awkward position and pissed that they're stuck with a toddler for the foreseeable future. "Fine. I think Stiles' old toddler bed is in the attic. I'll set it up...where?"

"Uh, guest room, I guess?" Stiles says.

"Stiles' room," Danny says at the same time.

They stare each other down, and Dad gives a worried grumble. "I'll let you two work that out."

Danny stands. "I'll walk you out, Jordan." This is secret bro code for a meeting of The Society of People Who Give the Most Fucks About Derek Hale.

Derek whines, distraught that his two favorite people are leaving, but Dad starts a rousing game of "got your nose," and even though Derek should be too old for that, he's riveted in seconds.

Danny comes back and leans on the kitchen door frame. "Stiles, I'm going to your room to start looking up the stuff Scott asked for. Sheriff, you...shouldn't ask me about what I'm doing."

Dad nods. "Understood."

Stiles stands. "I'll come with you. I need to set up the call with Cora."

He makes it three steps before Dad clears his throat and says, "Aren't you boys forgetting something?" When they turn, he points at the tiny werewolf still coloring at the table.

"Oh, right," Stiles says, flushed to the roots of his hair as he comes back and lifts Derek. "Thanks, Dad." Dad's laughing as they leave the room, but Stiles feels wound up inside, and Danny's breathing has the slow evenness it gets when he's concentrating on it very carefully.

"Danny--" Stiles says as soon as the bedroom door closes behind them.

Danny roots through his backpack where he's dropped it on the bed, conveniently putting his back to Stiles. "No," he says, strain dripping from the sound. "Work first. Talk later." He pulls out his laptop and some cables, executes a complex set-up with them, and settles on the bed with his back against the headboard. He holds out his hand, and Stiles almost sobs his relief until he realizes the hand's for Derek. "Want to sit with me?" Danny asks, and Derek's instantly clambering onto the bed to nestle against his side.

Shoulders slumped, Stiles drops into his desk chair and glares at his phone for two full minutes before he rouses himself enough to text Cora.

Unsurprisingly, setting up an 8:00 Skype with Cora and relaying the details to Jordan takes way less time than trying to illegally track the witches' movements for the past two weeks, leaving Stiles unsure what to do with himself. He leans forward. "Hey, Derek, anything you want to do now?"

"Stiles," Danny says, frowning, "you can't say that to a kid this age. You suggest things, and they agree or disagree. Set parameters."

"Well, excuse me for not knowing that. Only child, best friend an only child, father's family halfway across the country, mother's family hasn't talked to us since her death? When would I have learned how to entertain a four-year-old?"

"Four and a half," Derek corrects, genuinely sounding like he's trying to be helpful.

"Thank you, Derek; I forgot. Do you play chess?"

"Stiles, for real?"

"What? Some kids do."

"Chess prodigies do. You think Derek was a chess prodigy and we didn't know it?"

"Well, he liked dresses, and we didn't know _that_." Come to think of it, he's pretty shocked Danny didn't know that.

"I like Go Fish," Derek offers.

Stiles spins, pointing at Derek. "Sold! Come on. I think I even have--" He rummages in a box at the back of his closet, crowing triumphantly when he finds a battered, ancient Go Fish deck. He waves it at Derek, and Danny snorts.

"Of course you have a kids' card game."

"Also great for drunk teenagers."

Danny squints at him. "What drunk teenagers? Most of your friends can't get drunk."

"They could when we were 15."

Danny's gaze stays on his computer screen, but one eyebrow lifts. "You and McCall were getting drunk at 15?"

Stiles rolls his eyes as he sweeps Derek off the bed and starts dealing a game on the floor. "Don't tell me you and Jackson weren't."

"Not getting drunk and playing Go Fish," Danny scoffs.

"Yeah, well, people weren't exactly lining the block to hook up with Scotty and me, so we made our fun where we could."

Danny frowns and looks kind of repentant. "Sorry."

Stiles shrugs. "Not your fault, dude. I didn't expect you to notice me any more than a lion notices an ant. Not that the ant isn't important in its own way, but, like, entirely different scales of being." He means it, mostly. Yeah, it'd sucked, being thoroughly and consistently ignored by both of his junior high crushes, but running with apex predators the past few years has taught him a lot about perspective. After all, the whole time he'd been pining over Danny and Lydia, Erica had been pining over him, and Boyd over Erica, and probably somebody else over Boyd. High school, as Derek said once, is a lot like the wild.

Danny's still frowning at him. "I wish you wouldn't do that," he says tightly.

Stiles shrugs, because he knows, but what's he going to do? He won't say Danny wasn't an asshole to him in ninth and tenth grades, because he was. But let's face it, Stiles was an asshole back. He doesn't blame Danny, either, because it's not like Danny ignoring him ruined his life. That's on Peter Hale and Gerard Argent. And the alpha pack. And the Nogitsune. Danny doesn't even warrant a slot on the honorable mention list. "You notice me now," he says, "so it worked out." And Boyd and Erica are dead, and Lydia's spun through one disastrous relationship after another. So, right. Everything worked out.

"Stiles," Derek says, in a stentorian time that tells Stiles this isn't the first time he's said it, "do you have any angelfish?"

Stiles shakes himself from his daze and checks his hand. "Go fish," he says, and Derek huffs at him before drawing. His pudgy fingers struggle a moment with the cards, but he glares when Stiles tries to help, so he showily pulls his hand away and hides his snicker.

They've been upstairs about an hour when Dad pokes his head around the open door. The Go Fish cards long abandoned, Derek's back to drawing on the back of Stiles' seemingly endless pile of old term papers. "I found the bed, and a stepstool to help Derek get to the toilet and sink. I'm about to put in a call for dinner. Any requests?"

Stiles tosses aside his book and starts to stand. "I'll cook."

Dad points him down. "Save your energy. You'll need it for the kid."

Danny rubs the side of his face. "Lorenzo's has a good kids' menu."

"Yeah?" Dad asks, and when Danny shrugs and nods, he says, "Huh. Thanks," and walks away. Stiles doesn't ask how Danny knows this. He suspects he wouldn't like the answer.

Stiles stares, unseeing, at the cards in his hand. In his periphery, he sees Derek tuck his feet under the hem of his dress and wriggle them back and forth, captivated by the stretch of the material. "Look," Stiles says, "about earlier--"

"I don't want to talk about it," Danny says.

"You never want to talk about it," Stiles fires back. "You just want to passive-aggressively guilt me about it."

"Don't you dare--"

"Don't _fight_!" Derek growls. He can't reach their mouths this time, but he stamps his feet and makes tiny fists, and his eyes flash gold.

Stiles smiles weakly and rubs a hand down Derek's back. "Sorry, kiddo. Danny and I were having a discussion." Derek scowls like he's totally on to Stiles' code.

"Maybe after dinner?" Danny offers. Stiles doesn't want to wait, but they're not at their best when they're hungry, and this has been a trying day already. He nods, and Danny's smile is warm and grateful.

Stiles leans over and takes Danny's hand, tangling their fingers together. Danny sighs and gives him a relieved smile. They sit, Stiles reveling in his mind's rare moment of quiet, Danny no doubt reveling in Stiles' mouth's rare moment of quiet, until Derek makes a pleased sound and says, "Better!"

With a startled laugh, Danny sits up and looks at Derek. Stiles squeezes Danny's hand and gestures at the laptop. "I can take over for a while if you want to play."

Danny looks up, startled and hopeful. "Yeah?"

"Sure. I'm not as good at this as you, but if you have protocols running, I can plug data into them as well as the next guy--the next guy being you, and 'as well as' being kind of a lie because I just said I'm not as good--"

"Stiles?" Danny cuts him off gently and leans over for a kiss. "Thank you."

Stiles blushes, nods, and leans back so Danny can get off the bed. "All right," Danny tells Derek, "let's see what Sheriff Stilinski's up to!"

That doesn't seem to Stiles, as he settles in with the laptop and Danny chases a giggling Derek into the hall, like a particularly fun game. Then again, what he doesn't know about kids could fill the ocean. He's beyond content leaving it to Danny.

*

At 7:15, as Stiles is polishing off the remains of the most decadent, delicious gnocchi he's ever tasted, the doorbell rings. Stiles, Dad, and Danny stare at each other. "We expecting anyone?" Dad asks, half out of his chair.

"Jordan's coming back for the call with Cora, but that's not 'til eight," Stiles tells him.

Still, he's not surprised when he hears Dad say, "Evening, Parrish, welcome back." Dad returns to the table with Jordan at his heels. Macaroni forgotten, Derek goes back to his favorite pastime: staring adoringly at Jordan. "You eat yet?" Dad waves at the leftovers on the counter.

"Ah, yes, sir," Jordan says, slipping into the empty chair between Stiles and Derek.

"He's lying," Derek announces. "His heart did a funny thing."

Awkward silence falls until Stiles laughs shrilly and says, "That answers that question."

Dad narrows his eyes at Jordan, who flushes and drops his gaze to the table. "Not hungry, I guess," he says.

"Is everything okay?" Danny asks. "The call's at eight."

Jordan shrugs. Derek solemnly hands him his spoonful of macaroni. Jordan smiles almost shyly as he takes it. "I figured I'd come early so we can make a list of questions for Cora."

Stiles' heart sinks. That's a smart, sensible plan that shows how much Jordan is keeping Derek in the forefront of his thoughts in this. But all Stiles wants is to go to his room and have it out with Danny so they can be made up by the time Cora calls.

Dad smiles and pushes his chair away from the table. "That's a great idea," he tells Jordan. "We're done in here. You boys make your list in the living room, and Derek and I will take care of the dishes."

Danny smiles at Derek. "How's that sound, kiddo? Want to help Sheriff Stilinski with the dishes?"

Derek looks stricken. "Mommy says I shouldn't touch the dishes. They break."

While Stiles' heart melts at the thought of tiny, destructive Derek Hale breaking Talia's china, Dad lifts Derek off his booster seat. "I'll let you put away the silverware. Definitely not breakable."

By quarter to eight, they have a substantial list of questions about werewolf physical and mental development. Dad walks through the room once, Derek behind him, and announces that they're going to have man-time in the man-cave, which means watching old Disney movies on the computer in Dad's home office. Stiles is heartened by the way Danny curls into his side on the couch while they brainstorm, but he knows it's only a ceasefire, not a lasting peace.

They relocate to Stiles' room, and at eight on the nose, Skype alerts them to an incoming call. Stiles accepts it, and Cora's lovely face fills the screen. "Hey, asshole," she says, waving. She beams at Danny. "Mr. Asshole."

"You're a laugh a minute, Cora," Stiles snipes. "How're your tiny equatorial islands?"

"Nice," she says. "Lots of turtles."

"How do you stand such a hot climate? You guys run, what, three degrees hotter than human average?"

"About. But we also sweat more, which helps." Cora casts a scrutinizing eye over Jordan. "Who's the hottie?"

"Which one?" Stiles bats his eyelashes, and she scowls.

"The one I haven't met, duh."

"Cora," Danny says, because unlike Stiles, he has actual human manners, "this is Derek's boyfriend, Deputy Jordan Parrish. Jordan, Derek's sister Cora."

Cora eyes Jordan with frank admiration. "Oh, wow," she says, "big bro done _good_."

"Added bonus: not evil!" Stiles says as Jordan blushes brightly.

"Cool." Cora squints. "Where is His Royal Broodiness?"

"Ah, well. About that." Stiles rubs the back of his hand. "Hilarious story."

"What did you do?"

When they explain the situation, Cora's eyes widen. "Show me," she demands.

"Aw, man, he's all the way downstairs, with my dad..."

"Fine," she snaps, "but pictures, damn it. All of them. And if this isn't fixed by next week, we're doing this again, and he'd better be sitting right there, front and center on your stupid pointy lap." Stiles salutes, and Danny hides a laugh behind his hand as Jordan's eyebrows climb toward his hairline.

Cora gives them a rundown of what to expect. "Immunity and healing are online," she tells them, "so no worries about injury or illness. Enhanced senses, too--but he can't turn them down, so he'll be cranky in noisy, bright, or smelly settings."

Danny grimaces. "That'll be great when we take him to Deaton's."

Cora nods sympathetically. "He can do eyes but not claws or fangs."

Danny and Stiles smile. "We saw the eyes today," Danny says.

Cora grins. "Did he alpha you?"

"He wouldn't--" Jordan splutters at the same time Stiles and Danny say emphatically, " _Yes_."

"So, werewolf kids do this hilarious thing called 'situational alphahood.'" She's almost bouncing, she's so excited to explain this to them. "They recognize actual alphas, but when it's kids together, there's a power vacuum. So they try it on, take turns bossing each other around." She gives them a shrewd look. "I take it there were no other werewolves in the room at the time."

"No," Stiles admits reluctantly. Great. Alphaed by a four-year-old.

"Look, just..." Cora bites her lip. "Make sure he's loved, that's the main thing. Right now he wants pack, and family, and home. Do what you can for him."

Danny nods. "We're trying."

When the call ends, they sit around for a second, looking at each other, not sure what to do next. Jordan shrugs. "BioShock?"

Normally Stiles would be all for that, because Jordan is crappy at BioShock but hilarious to play against. But right now he needs to talk things out with Danny. "Never go to bed angry" may be cliché, but his parents swore by it, and it feels important to him, too (he wrote a paper on the scientific validity of common adages, and he thinks there might be something to this one. Too bad the assignment was about the Marshall Plan).

"We should set up Derek's bed first," Danny says, and Stiles blinks. His mood plummets further even as he grudgingly admires Danny's adroit dodge of the conversation.

"Guest room," he says automatically.

"This room." Danny crosses his arms. "Cora _just said_ he needs to be surrounded by his pack."

"I can't have a toddler in my room, Danny!" Stiles flails his hands around. "I can barely sleep with you in here, and I _love_ you!"

Oh, _shit_. He squeezes his eyes shut tight. _Stiles, you douche, you do not yell that in the middle of a fight. Christ, no wonder you were single for so long._

"Don't do that," Danny says, voice brittle.

Stiles' eyes spring open. "Do what?"

"I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you. Don't do that thing where you hide behind completely unjustified guilt for everything from my first breakup to rise of the Third Reich."

"Damn," Jordan breathes, "Godwin'ed in one." He waves a hand into the hall. "I'm gonna...check on Derek and the sheriff." He all but sprints from the room.

Stiles barely notices. "I'm sorry," he says.

"You're sorry." Danny crosses his arms. Stiles thinks he wants to look intimidating, but all Stiles sees is how vulnerable he looks, like he's holding himself together.

"Sorry it came out like that." He waves his hand, traces nonsense patterns in the air. "You know I do, though."

Danny, bless him, uncrosses his arms and squeezes Stiles' hand. "I love you, too. And we're not putting Derek in the guest room."

" _Danny_ ," Stiles whines.

"I know a couple things," Danny says. "Ways we can have Derek in here and still get you a decent night's sleep."

"Are they, like, magical or physical things? Cause I don't--" He shakes his head and looks away. He's the pack spark, training to be its emissary, and since the Nogitsune, some days he's still afraid of his own damned magic.

Danny gets that. "Both," he says, rubbing his thumb reassuringly over Stiles' palm. "And I've used them all on myself."

Stiles snorts. "When do you do anything but sleep the sleep of the righteous?"

"Every time you get hurt, asshole," Danny snaps, eyes narrowed.

Stiles looks at the floor, chagrined. "Okay, fine," he says. "We'll try having him in here. But if I can't sleep--"

"We'll move him to the guest room," Danny promises. Danny will go with Derek if it comes to that, but Stiles can't be bothered by that knowledge. One of the downsides of his ADHD is needing almost obsessively specific conditions before he can fall asleep. His pillow's only part of it; there are requirements around how much noise he can handle, how much light, how much movement. He can't imagine how kid-Derek will play into it, but he's willing to trust that Danny knows something that can help.

They find the stepstool and the toddler bed, broken down into three pieces, at the end of the hall near the attic access. They haul the bed into Stiles' room, Stiles bitching about the humans doing the heavy lifting until Danny smiles sweetly and offers to ask Derek for help. Stiles grimaces and keeps walking. Once the bed's positioned and bearing Batman sheets that are clean, if musty, Stiles settles in with his newest stack of comics while Danny runs downstairs to check in on the others. Stiles knows he should go along, but until he and Danny hash this out, he's not sure he can handle the mess of emotions tiny Derek's stirring up in him.

Only...he can't concentrate. He throws his books onto the floor and picks up his phone, which he hasn't looked at since before dinner. He's missed quite a few texts, and he forces himself to focus as he scrolls through them.

 **TWOO ALFA:** deaton wants derek at the clinic tomorrow morning @ 9. Can u be up in time?

 **Dances with Scarves:** j passed cnty line

 **Dances with Scarves:** no sign of ws

 **Dances with Scarves:** how much farther?

 **Foxy:** might have a match. Did w take any of derek's hair b4 she cast?

 **Screaming Mimi:** I doubt it, sweetie.

 **Screaming Mimi:** Stiles, tell me exactly what she said to you before Derek got hit.

 **TWOO ALFA:** isaac, come home. ur in frank-mccoy territory, and i didn't clear it w/them

 **Sexy Boyfriend:** we have a 4 yo in the house scott

 **Sexy Boyfriend:** getting up early won't b a problem

 **Dances with Scarves:** omw

Stiles stares at the screen, stunned by how busy the pack's been, and especially that Danny managed to get a reply in before Stiles even saw the messages. He thinks for a minute.

 **TO Screaming Mimi, Foxy:** lyds, don't remember exactly

 **TO Screaming Mimi, Foxy:** she may have called me a mewling insolent child

 **TO ALL:** btw, jordan, kimmy, & dad are in the know

 **TO ALL:** in case we need them for anything

 **Screaming Mimi:** That makes sense.

 **Screaming Mimi:** Thank you.

 **Foxy:** ooh! I think I know this one!

 **Screaming Mimi:** maybe

 **TWOO ALFA:** thx, bro

 **TWOO ALFA:** how u holding up?

Stiles considers this. He's grateful the last message is only to him.

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** hard to say

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** derek's great, but jordan's a wreck, and this is bringing up a lot of shit for danny and me

 **TWOO ALFA:** shit man i was afraid it might

 **TWOO ALFA:** if everybody else hadn't freaked d out i wouldn't have sent him home w/u

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** thanks, man

 **TWOO ALFA:** wanna talk about it?

This right here is why Scott's his best friend. Scott's just _there_ for him, down with whatever Stiles does or doesn't want to tell him. Stiles' fingers hover indecisively for a long minute.

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** nah. i mean i want to, but i should talk it thru with danny first

 **TWOO ALFA:** v mature of u dude

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** yeah?

 **TWOO ALFA:** totally. i'm v proud

Stiles kind of is, too.

 **TWOO ALFA:** how's derek?

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** fucking adorable, dude, srsly

That much, at least, is easy to say.

 **TWOO ALFA:** cool. pics?

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** uh, no. huh. not sure y

 **TWOO ALFA:** send em if you take any

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** will do

Scott signs off, reminding Stiles of their morning appointment with Deaton and urging him not to stay up too late. Stiles looks at his comic books, sighs, and goes downstairs. His phone's out the instant he walks into the office, because this is too damned cute.

 _Mulan_ is about two-thirds through on the computer, and only Derek is watching. Dad's in his armchair, glasses on, a file open in his lap--an administrative report, if his "kill me now" expression is anything to go by. Danny and Jordan sit beside each other on the couch, sound asleep. Danny's head lolls against the back of the couch; Jordan's chin slips repeatedly off his hand. Derek's on his back, sprawled across both their laps, his head pillowed on Danny's thigh while his bare heels kick gently at Jordan's. This shit's going on Facebook.

Stiles has turned off his camera's flash because, duh, werewolves, but Derek must hear the fake shutter sound, because as soon as the picture's taken, he pops up and grins. "Stiles!" he says, making grabby hands over the back of the couch.

Stiles smiles back and comes around the couch, squeezing Dad's shoulder as he passes. Danny shifts but doesn't wake. "Hey, buddy," Stiles says as he crouches down. "You having a good time?"

The grin falters, and Derek looks at his hands, twisting and untwisting his dress. "I guess."

Stiles runs a hand down Derek's arm. "What's up?"

Derek shrugs. "Jordan doesn't like me."

"What? Buddy, no! He likes you a lot." Oh, what fresh hell is this?

Stiles should not find Derek's tiny scowl this adorable. "He smells sad."

"Oh. Oh, Derek." Stiles lifts Derek up, corkscrewing around to sit on the floor with his back to the couch and Derek on his lap facing him. "It's not your fault, okay?" He stares into Derek's eyes. "It's _not._ He...you remind him of someone special to him, who's not here right now. You're not making him sad, I promise. He just misses his friend."

"His friend should come here," Derek says decisively. "Then he wouldn't be sad anymore."

Stiles' eyes itch. Must be allergic to the carpet or something. "He can't be here right now. That's why Jordan's sad. But we're gonna figure out how to get him back."

"Good," Derek says, nodding. "Jordan shouldn't be sad. He's pretty."

Stiles smothers a laugh and hears Dad doing likewise. "I think it's time for all good werewolves to be in bed," Dad says.

Derek grumbles but climbs off Stiles' lap, walks up to Jordan, and prods his cheek. Stiles dives forward to grab his hand, maybe with a stern warning about poking, but Jordan lurches up and yelps, "Damn it, Derek, I don't have to--" He freezes and stares at Derek, wide-eyed, then strokes his index finger carefully down Derek's cheek.

Danny cracks one eye open blearily. "You okay?" he asks, voice kind of a croak.

"He used to--" Jordan swallows. "He does that to me. Derek. My Derek. It's how he wakes me up when I sleep through my alarm."

"So he's...what, remembering things from when he was an adult?" Dad asks, doing a great job of representing the "what the fuck?" faction of the room.

Danny gives a helpless "how the hell should I know?" shrug. "Worth bringing up with Deaton tomorrow."

Dad offers Jordan the guest room, but he declines it. They get him out the door with minimum fussing from Derek, then Danny herds Derek up the stairs to get ready for bed.

"You staying tonight, Danny?" Dad calls after him.

"If that's alright," he replies deferentially.

"Fine by me. Your parents aren't expecting you home?"

Danny comes down a few stairs, looking sheepish. "Kimmy's covering for me. Anyway, Dad's swamped at work, and Mom's prepping for a conference at the end of the month. Long as I drop by every now and then, I'm not sure they'll notice."

Dad rolls his eyes. "Give 'em a little more credit. They'll notice. But I'm sure they'll assume it's Stiles being a bad influence, as usual."

"Hey!" Stiles protests.

"Don't worry," Dad assures Danny, "if they call, I'll cover for you, too."

Danny's face breaks into its beautiful, dimpled smile, and Stiles thinks for the millionth time how much better life is now that they don't have to lie to his dad. He hopes someday they'll have the same openness with the Mahealanis, but Danny's refusal to read his parents in on the supernatural is one of the lead topics on their conversational no-fly list, so Stiles resigns himself to waiting and follows Danny and Derek up the stairs.

They wrangle Derek into his pajamas. Stiles takes a picture and sends it to Scott, captioned "wolf in sheep's clothing." He also sends along the couch picture.

 **TWOO ALFA:** how is he so cute? :(

 **TWOO ALFA:** is he wearing a dress?

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** yes

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** and if he gets so much as a syllable of grief about it from anyone, danny and i will go on a murderous rampage

 **TWOO ALFA:** come on

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** mean it, bro

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** don't care that you're faster and stronger

 **TO TWOO ALFA:** we have magic and wolfsbane and we'll use them both

Stiles punctuates that text with a stern glare. They're not going to take anybody's shit about Derek's gender expression, whatever that turns out to be.

Derek smiles when they tuck him into bed. "I like Batman," Derek says.

"Course you do," Stiles says. "Batman's the best." Danny huffs behind him. "You need anything? Teddy bear? Bedtime story?"

"Stiles is good at stories," Danny says. "He does voices."

Derek's eyes are drifting shut. "Maybe 'morrow," he says around a yawn. "'M tired now."

Stiles reaches down and smooths Derek's dark hair. "Been a long day, hasn't it?" Derek makes a sleepy sound that might be agreement. "Night, kiddo."

Stiles steps back, and Danny leans down, placing a kiss to Derek's forehead. "Sweet dreams, Derek." He straightens and looks at Stiles, chin lifted in challenge. "Guess we should talk now."

And they should. But he doesn't want to. It's only 9:30, but he can barely keep his eyes open. He steps forward and curls his fingers around Danny's hip. "Honestly, all I want right now is to sit in bed and read 'til my eyes won't stay open. Maybe have you show me those things you think could help me sleep."

It's a bad idea. They shouldn't indulge another dodge. But Danny's shoulders relax, and he smiles and nods. "Okay," he says, "I can do that, too."


	2. Day 2: 72-Hour Rule

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone gets a better handle on what's going on with Derek--and has no idea what to do about it. So...tea party, anyone?

Danny wakes from a fitful sleep with urgent pressure on his bladder and a four-year-old staring at him. He lifts his head. "Hi."

"I have to go to the bathroom," Derek says.

"Okay."

Derek leans in close and whispers, "I don't remember where it is."

Oh, right. Well, it's not like he wasn't headed there himself. He eases out from under Stiles' arm and out of bed. His phone tells him it's just past four. Stiles snuffles and clutches the empty space but doesn't seem to register his absence. Typical. Danny smiles at Derek and holds out his hand.

When they get back to the bedroom, Derek looks mournfully from Stiles' bed, where Stiles has flopped onto his stomach and starfished across the whole surface, to his own tiny cot. He looks up, and Danny can anticipate what happens next. "Can I sleep with you?"

Danny could list a dozen reasons he should say no, at least ten of which are Stiles. He knows he's going to say yes. He doesn't have the best track record saying no to Derek in his adult form; he doesn't stand a chance against the miniature version and his enormous eyes.

Danny kneels on the bed and nudges Stiles' side. "Stiles," he says quietly.

Stiles jerks; his eyes slit open, but Danny can tell he's not awake. "Huzzat?"

"Budge up." Stiles rolls onto his side so his back's to the wall. Danny slips down and fits his back against Stiles' chest, then holds his arms open for Derek. Derek scrambles onto the bed with greater agility than a human at this age could've and wriggles around until he's in the same position.

"Okay?" Danny whispers. Derek gives a sleepy nod. Danny thinks, _This'll be awkward as fuck once he's back to normal_ and tries to get back to sleep.

Only everything's so _quiet_. He's not used to it anymore. When they first started sharing a bed, Stiles' endless shifting and muttering, not ceasing even in sleep, kept Danny up for hours. Now, he can't sleep without it. The charm they used to knock Stiles out is the magical equivalent of Ambien, and he's out cold, deeper into sleep than Danny's ever seen him. He misses the tiny twitches and the nonsense half-sentences. After all, that was how he first started falling for Stiles.

When they got Kimmy back from the naiads, Scott insisted that two pack members stay with her at all times, in case the naiads tried to take her back. Danny, naturally, took the overnight shift. He'd wanted Derek or Lydia with him, but Scott had ordered Stiles to stay. Danny has wondered, over the years, if that was Scott's attempt at matchmaking, but the one time he asked, Scott looked blank and claimed not to know what Danny was talking about. Less skilled than Stiles at reading Scott, Danny's not convinced one way or the other.

In any case, there they'd been, Danny in his bed, Stiles in a nest of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor, and Stiles had started talking. That part wasn't surprising--talking's always been what Stiles does best. What was surprising was how open he'd been. How honest. It's easy to forget that Stiles uses words as shields as well as weapons. He can talk rings around you for days and leave you none the wiser about who he is or what he wants. But in Danny's room that night, that shield fell away. As the night wore on, and Stiles talked on, Danny started to realize that, despite having known him since fourth grade, he was meeting the real Stiles Stilinski for the first time.

Something about Stiles' earnest sincerity, so different from his habitual sarcasm, made Danny respond in kind. By midnight, they were sharing confidences only their best friends knew. By two, they were confessing secrets they'd never told _anyone_. Around the time daylight started reclaiming the sky, Danny flipped back the covers and invited Stiles into the bed--and he'd never left.

So now Danny is the one shifting and sighing, trying not to jostle the child in his arms, while Stiles sleeps like a log behind him.

"Sleep, Danny," Derek says, and Danny wants to laugh at the hopelessness of it. When _Derek Hale_ tells you to sleep, your life is seriously off the rails. Then Derek wraps his fingers around Danny's wrist, and Danny gasps as pain flows out of him and small black lines run up Derek's hand and arm. He's never thought of insomnia as a relievable pain, and Cora hadn't mentioned Derek being able to do this yet, but he's grateful it's happening.

"Don't take too much," Danny manages to whisper, and then sleep takes hold.

*

Danny's phone alarm is set for seven, but he's drifting toward wakefulness when Sheriff Stilinski leans around the door at quarter 'til. The sheriff takes in the tableau and snorts. "I'm headed in," he says softly. "You need anything?"

Danny shakes his head. "No thank you, sir. We just need to get Derek up and to Deaton's."

The sheriff nods. "Will Parrish be there?"

"I don't think so."

"Call or text him as soon as you know anything. He'll be worrying."

"We will," Danny promises.

Sheriff Stilinski smiles at Stiles and Derek and closes the door behind him. The instant it clicks, Stiles flings himself upright, gasping, "Shit, we're gonna be late for school!"

Danny eyes him with raised brows. "Number one, it's summer. Number two, you haven't had an 8:00 class in three semesters."

Stiles flops back onto the mattress and drapes his arm across his eyes. "Sorry," he mutters. "I get back in this bed and think I'm in high school again. Thank God it's summer."

"Also," Derek adds, "you said a naughty word."

"Holy what the--" Stiles is upright again, staring around Danny at Derek. "Are you--did he _sleep_ here?" His voice cracks on "sleep" in a way that would be hilarious if Danny didn't feel the rumblings of a headache building behind his eyes.

"Only since four. You were out cold."

"Not the point, Danny," Stiles snaps.

"What _is_ the point, Stiles?" Danny climbs out of bed and sweeps Derek up with him. "Come on," he says, "let's get you dressed so we can see Dr. Deaton."

Once Derek's gone to the bathroom and Danny's dressed him in a dark blue dress with big white flowers, they go downstairs to see if the Stilinskis have any toddler-friendly food. He's keeping his expectations low; despite Stiles' crusade to make his father eat healthy, the sheriff grocery shops like a frat boy, and Stiles' summer stays make things worse, because his money's far from his mouth on the health food front. He's pleasantly surprised to find strawberry yogurt in the fridge. "You like yogurt, Derek?"

"Yeah!" Derek says. He wiggles in his chair. "With chocolate chips!"

Okay, that defeats the purpose of finding healthy food for him, but yogurt with a few chocolate chips is probably better than the super-sweetened cereal Stiles will be eating. He has no idea about proper serving size for a kid Derek's age--and is it different for werewolves?--but he gets a bowl and puts in what seems like a reasonable amount.

About the time Danny finds the chocolate chips, Stiles comes into the kitchen in his pajamas. He rubs Derek's back and drops a gentle kiss onto the top of his head before sidling up to Danny and sliding an arm around his waist. "Hey, coffee!" he exclaims. He snags a mug from the mug tree next to the coffeemaker and pours himself a cup without removing his arm from Danny's lower back. Stiles croons endearments at his coffee, and Danny reminds himself to breathe.

It's just...Stiles did that automatically. He kissed Derek and folded him into their morning routine without a thought. For the first time since the spell hit Derek, Danny allows himself to hope the conversation he needs to have with Stiles won't end in despair.

"I like your dress, Derek," Stiles says with complete sincerity.

Derek dumps so many chocolate chips into his bowl Danny can barely see the yogurt. He sticks his spoon into the resulting mess and tells Stiles, "Dresses are very comfortable. They're practical." He over-enunciates the adjectives, clearly repeating something he was told without understanding what it means. Picking up his yogurt-covered, chocolate-studded spoon, he adds, "And pretty, too."

Danny grins at Stiles over Derek's head, remembering the time Stiles let the girls at Jungle dress him in drag and doubting he found the experience comfortable or practical. Stiles smiles at Derek and says, "They sure are, buddy. And you look good in them." Derek ducks his head, suddenly very engrossed in his yogurt.

After breakfast, Stiles cleans the kitchen and watches Derek while Danny gets dressed. Then Danny takes Derek while Stiles gets dressed. They do it effortlessly, like it's routine, and Danny has to work extra hard to lock down the part of himself that goes into daydream mode at times like this.

Before Stiles, only Danny's family had known how much Danny wants kids and how soon he wants them. Before Stiles, he'd only had one boyfriend who felt close enough to consider mentioning it to, and that boyfriend turned out to be a homicidal werewolf. When he realized how serious he was about Stiles, he'd hoped Stiles would get it. His parents were relatively young when he was born. And the way he calls Scott his brother made Danny think he appreciated the importance of siblings. But three months later, Danny can't think of the conversation where kids first came up without tasting something sour, and it's become Issue #1 on their list of forbidden relationship topics.

Danny shoves those thoughts aside and focuses on getting their odd family out the door.

They pull into the parking lot at 8:58 and walk through the clinic door as Deaton's watch beeps 9. Scott looks grudgingly impressed; Stiles glares over the top of his sunglasses. "Ye of little faith, Scotty," he says. Scott shrugs.

In Danny's arms, Derek's growing restive, trying to squirm away from Scott. Shit. They should've dealt with this last night. "Derek," Danny says softly, "I promise Scott's okay. He's Stiles' best friend, and he won't hurt you."

Scott approaches cautiously, wide smile in place. "Hey, Derek," he says.

"Hey." Derek tries for nonchalance, but Danny can tell Scott intrigues him as much as he scares him.

"So, maybe you and I could hang out later?" Scott asks. Danny feels Derek bristle, and Scott holds up his hands. "I won't try to be your alpha, because that's your mom, and your mom's great. Just...buddies. Us werewolves gotta stick together, right?"

Derek cocks his head. "Do you like tea? We could have a tea party."

If Danny weren't holding Derek, he'd toss up his hands in defeat. In his periphery, he sees Stiles make a "nope, done" gesture, and he has to agree. _Tea party._ If Derek keeps this up, they're going to turn into marshmallows. Maybe literally. Life in Beacon Hills.

If the way Scott beams at Derek when he says, "Sure thing, man," is any indication, marshmallowfication may already be starting.

"If you could step this way, gentlemen," Deaton says, lifting the counter. As always, Danny's not thrilled about a veterinarian examining his friends, but he understands that modern medicine can't handle some things, and a werewolf de-aged by a witch's spell comes high on that list. They follow Deaton into an exam room and set Derek on the edge of the table. He swings his feet, kicking his heels against the sides and eyeing Deaton warily. Danny catches Stiles giving Scott the stink-eye and mouthing, "Not. one. word." He's betting that has to do with the dress.

"Danny, Stiles, what can you tell me about Derek's behavior since being hit with the spell?" Danny recognizes Deaton's teaching tone, the one that says he expects a concise recitation of facts and observations. He straightens his spine and organizes his report in his mind.

Stiles puts a hand on Derek's back and speaks like a proud parent in a pediatrician's office. "You've been a good little guy, haven't you, Derek? I mean, this can't be easy for you, in a new place, surrounded by strangers who talk about you like you're not here."

Deaton snorts. "I take your point, Mr. Stilinski. Stand down." He approaches the exam table and crouches so he's more at a level with Derek. "Hello, Derek. My name is Alan. How are you?"

Derek gives an exaggerated shrug and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "'Sokay. Miss my mommy and daddy. But Danny and Stiles are okay, and the sheriff smells safe, and Jordan is very pretty." He looks around and deflates when he realizes Jordan's not here. Scott stifles a laugh.

Deaton hums. "You like Deputy Parrish?" he asks. Derek looks blank. "Jordan," Deaton clarifies.

"He has pretty eyes," Derek says dreamily, and Danny wants to scoop him up and run with him to the station, because god knows not much else is going right for him.

Danny knows the difference between real magic and bullshit. What Deaton's doing now is pure bullshit, designed to make Derek think Deaton's paying attention to him while he pumps the others for information. "He's drawn to Deputy Parrish?"

"Like a suicidal moth to the world's biggest bug zapper," Stiles says. Deaton purses his lips.

"He did something last night," Danny says, "something Jordan says the adult Derek does."

"Oh?" A flicker of interest shows on Deaton's face. "And that was?"

Danny holds his gaze. "The what isn't important. What matters is that they didn't know each other when Derek was this age, so it can't be an original memory."

"Fascinating." Deaton moves his hand around Derek's head--and that looks like real magic--and then muses, "It could be the Derek we're accustomed to in a child's body."

"He doesn't recognize us," Stiles says. "Any of us, even Parrish. He has no idea about the f-i-r-e, either."

"All right," Deaton says. "And the dress? Is that a prior behavior?"

Danny shrugs helplessly. "Not that we know of, but you know how he is."

Deaton nods and steps back from Derek, whose shoulders relax. "I don't recognize the spell or the general family. I can't be certain about lasting consequences or means of reversal."

"Any suggestions?" Danny asks. "At _all_?"

Deaton shrugs. "Some spells wear off after a certain amount of time. Others require the victim to learn a lesson or complete a task to trigger reversal."

"Are--are you kidding me?" Stiles blinks rapidly. "Hey, Derek, don't eat paste." Over Derek's delighted giggling, Stiles waves his arms and says, "He's four and a half. That's about the best we're gonna get from him, lesson-wise."

Deaton tilts his head at Stiles. "Since you may have been the spell's original target, perhaps you would be the one whose lesson it depends on."

Danny's considered this possibility. It's a good guess. And he knows, better than anyone, how good Stiles can be with challenges like this. Still, he can't help agreeing when Scott exhales sharply and mutters, "Oh, crap."

*

Scott walks with them to the car. "Pack meeting this afternoon, okay?"

"Can you make it after four?" Danny asks. "Jordan's shift's done at three; he'll want to be there."

Scott nods. "Sure. I can do that."

"Tell us where," Stiles says. "I'm sure Dad'd love to watch Derek for a couple hours."

"Uh, I thought we'd do it at your house, so everyone can see him."

Danny curls his body around Derek's. It isn't a conscious movement; he just does it. "No," he says flatly, one hand splayed across Derek's back, the other cupping his head. Derek shifts and makes a worried whine, pressing his face against Danny's shoulder.

"Hey, no, I get it," Scott says, resting his hand on Danny's forearm. "I'll talk to the others beforehand, make sure they understand the dresses are off-limits."

Danny frowns at him. "It's not just the dresses. You get that, right? Gender expression is a minefield at any age, and we're not exactly--" He sighs, wishing for a third hand so he could pinch his nose. "You and Isaac are good guys who generally get it, but you're straight dudes who sometimes blurt things without understanding the consequences. And we love Lydia, but cruelty is kind of her stock in trade. I mean, I barely trust Stiles not to say something inappropriate at any moment." He shrugs apologetically.

Stiles smiles back ruefully. "I gotcha, dude," he says. "Hyperactive dickwad with zero brain-to-mouth filter. I'm almost as appalled by me as you are." Probably more. Stiles can be _so hard_ on himself.

Scott scratches the back of his neck. "I can't, uh, undo heteronormativity in one afternoon, but I promise I'll talk to everyone about inappropriate topics. How's that?"

Danny hesitates, because no, damn it, that's not good enough, not in 21st-century California, and in a group of people where werewolves and banshees and kitsune and magic-workers are no problem, a four-year-old boy who prefers dresses to pants shouldn't be a thing at all, yet here they are, actually needing to have this conversation.

"I do get it," Scott insists, "maybe, uh, better than you think." He and Stiles share a loaded glance that Danny's not going to try to parse, and Stiles' lips twitch as Scott flushes. "We're worried about him, is all. Most of the pack haven't seen him since yesterday, and I think, being able to see him, touch him, to know he's okay--I think Isaac, especially..." He bites his lower lip uncertainly, and Danny knows he's going to cave. Damn it, he's not a werewolf; Scott's not his alpha. Telling him no shouldn't seem impossible.

And yet, in spite of their losses and betrayals, Scott still believes in his pack's inherent goodness, their...redeemability. And something about that faith makes people want to share it. Makes Danny want to share it. "What do you think, Derek? Can the others come to Stiles' house later? Scott and Isaac would be there, and Kira."

Derek looks at Stiles. "Your daddy would let other wolfs and a fox into his den?"

Stiles shrugs. "Yeah, but we're human, so we don't notice it the way you do. So it's up to you. If you're not comfortable with it, we'll go somewhere else."

Derek gives a shrug that is an exact reproduction of Stiles', and Danny's not sure if it makes him want to laugh or cry. "Stiles says it's okay," he informs Danny, "so I guess it's okay."

"Okay." Danny sighs and shifts Derek to his other hip. "But anyone who makes a crack is out the door."

"Huh," Scott says, glancing at Stiles.

"What?" Danny demands.

"Nothing, just, Stiles already threatened us with wolfsbane and magic."

"Did he?" Danny raises an eyebrow at Stiles, who shrugs.

"Kid's got a right to his gender expression, same as anybody." He throws it out casually, but he doesn't fool Danny. He suspects it has less to do with concern for freedom of gender expression than with Derek--adult Derek, the one they're used to--being unwilling to admit to wanting anything for himself. What Stiles wants to do, Danny thinks, is create a safe space where all positive forms of expression are valid. Because somewhere along the line, someone told Derek that wasn't so, and Danny and Stiles are clearly on the same page in terms of that travesty needing fixing.

"Okay," Scott says, nodding. "I'll pass the word around. See you at four." Scott heads back inside to continue his shift, and Danny looks at Stiles.

"That was unhelpful," Stiles says as they settle Derek and themselves into the car.

"You expected anything different from Deaton?" Danny asks incredulously.

Stiles shrugs. "I guess not. I mean, given all the times he's stonewalled us when our lives were actually in danger, I guess he wouldn't do anything different for an unexpected kid situation." Stiles scrubs his hands through his hair, and despite his obvious distress, the resulting chaotic spikes _do things_ to Danny's dick, because he's a terrible person. "Sometimes I can't tell if he's the most flawlessly neutral emissary who ever was, or if he's really shitty at it."

Danny snorts, because, yeah, that sums up a lot of his feelings about Deaton. He's glad, for the millionth time, that he was able to learn magic from his family, and he feels a stab of futile, protective anger that Claudia's relatives abandoned Stiles after she died, leaving him to study with a smugly enigmatic asshole.

"This seems like a good story to tell the kiddies someday," Stiles says, watching the world zip past. "That one time we practiced parenting on Uncle Derek."

"I..." Danny blinks at him. "I guess that's as good an opening as any."

"As good a--" Stiles swallows, flexing his fingers against the door handle. "Yeah, okay. Major life discussions in a moving vehicle. Sounds awesome."

"I know it's not ideal, but the time will never be exactly right, and I..." Danny puffs out a breath. "I know you're right. I know we need to talk about it. But." He shakes his head.

"Hey," Stiles says, "when we get home, okay?"

Danny nods, his head sort of bobbing along with the wave of relief that's flowing through him. "Yeah, that sounds good. Thank you."

The instant they're inside the Stilinski house, Stiles calls out, "Yo, daddio, can you take the wolflet? Danny and I need grown-up time."

The sheriff's eyes are already rolling as he walks toward the entryway, but when he takes in the tense set of Danny's shoulders and the way Stiles is bouncing on the balls of his feet, he nods. "Ah," he says. " _That_ grown-up time." He eyes them critically. "Everything okay?"

"It will be," Stiles says, and Danny sort of wills it to be true.

They take their time getting to Stiles' room, neither of them in a hurry to start this discussion. Once the door closes behind them, Stiles drops into his chair and Danny settles onto the bed, and they stare at each other while they marshal the words they want. Danny gets himself together first. "I'm not that guy, Stiles. I won't break up with you if you're not ready to start a family tomorrow, but it drives me crazy that you keep blocking even the _idea_ \--"

"No, no," Stiles insists, shaking his head vehemently. "I'm not--Danny, no, I'm not _opposed_. But we're _19_. It's too soon."

Danny's eyes prickle, and his heart feels...constricted. "You know I don't agree, and you know why."

A frustrated buzzing noise escapes from Stiles' pursed lips; he makes a face like he hadn't wanted it to. "God, no, I don't want to wait as long as your parents did. But, dude, there's a middle ground between 19 and 40."

"That's how it starts, but I've seen how it gets pushed off. 'I'll have kids when I'm done with college.' 'I'll have kids when I'm done with grad school.' 'I'll have kids once my career's stable.' 'I'll have kids once I have a house.' Then all of a sudden you're in your 30s, and it's too late."

"Okay, one," Stiles says hotly, raising a finger, "30s is nowhere near too late. Two, it doesn't have to be like that if we plan. Be clear what we want and when we want it, and then figure out how to make it happen. Ta-da." He makes absurd jazz hands.

Danny snorts. "Just like that, huh?"

"Hey," Stiles says, bumping Danny's foot with his own, "if anyone can do it..."

"Yeah." Danny stares at his hands. "Only you don't know what you want."

"Not yet!" Stiles makes a sound of intense frustration. "Again, _19_. I haven't declared a _major_ yet. I'm allowed some uncertainty on the fatherhood front."

" _Some_ uncertainty, Stiles?" Danny leaps off the bed. "You don't have 'some uncertainty.' You have _a major_ _freak-out_ every time anyone so much as _mentions_ kids."

"I don't—"

"Last week," Danny says, relentless, "my mom pulled out pictures of Cousin Laney's new baby, and you excused yourself to the bathroom for ten minutes to have a panic attack."

"How did you—"

"Because I know you, Stiles. And I'm not stupid. The week before that, Jordan mentioned he'd switched shifts with Deputy Shang because she had to go for an ultrasound. Derek said you smelled _terrified_."

"Derek should keep his stupid werewolf nose to himself," Stiles grumbles. He slumps in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "The funny thing—for certain super-narrow values of 'funny'—is that I only do that when you're around. Because whenever someone mentions kids around you, you do this—you get this _look_ , like you're thinking about kids, and me, and how disappointed you are that I'm not ready. And it feels…it feels like an ultimatum. I mean, you keep saying you're not going to break up with me because I'm not going at your pace, but I feel like we're on two way different pages here. It's--this is a lot to dump on me. You're asking me to go from 'never had a really serious relationship' to 'let's talk about kids' in not a lot of time."

Danny's eyelids feel gritty, like he's scratching up his corneas every time he blinks. "Is that what this is about? We've talked about this. I don't need to be strictly monogamous. If you want to have sex with other people--if you want to _date_ other people, so you don't feel tied down, I'm willing to talk about it."

"What? No!" Stiles flails his hands around. "No, Jesus, Danny, it isn't--I am definitely a one-at-a-time guy. I don't have enough focus for polyamory. I just don't want--" He breaks off, rubs his hands over his face, blows out hard. He looks down and to the side, and Danny sees an expression Stiles hasn't shown in years. It's a resigned, disappointed look, and he first saw it when Lydia informed Stiles that he would be taking her to the Winter Formal because Jackson had broken up with her. It's the look of someone used to never being anyone's first choice. Danny feels a strike of fear for what's coming out of Stiles' mouth next.

"What?" Danny asks softly. "What don't you want, Stiles?"

Stiles shrugs up to his ears. "I always figured, if I had kids, it would be because someone loved _me_ and wanted a family _with me_. Not because I was the guy someone happened to be dating when his biological clock started ticking."

Danny staggers. He actually staggers, going down in a heap when his legs hit the edge of the bed. The inside of his head feels...fuzzy, and he can't connect the sounds that came out of Stiles' mouth with any words whose meanings he's ever known. "Do you--is that what you think?"

"I know the score, Danny, all right? You told Ethan you didn't want to date a werewolf, but you also told Lydia it wouldn't be fair to be with someone who didn't know about the supernatural stuff. By process of elimination, I was the only option left, right?"

Panic and confusion war in Danny. How has he missed this? Has Stiles felt this way the entire time they've been together? Stiles is damned good at evading, but Danny thought he was better at pursuing. If he's missed something this huge--

Danny wants to list all the things that drew him to Stiles--his intelligence, his sharp humor, his fierce loyalty and determination, his lips--but Stiles has self-esteem issues that could pay a shrink's kid's way through Harvard. "Stiles," he says carefully, "do you have any idea how many guys Kira tried to set me up with after Ethan left? It turns out there's this countywide network of supernatural and associated beings, and Mrs. Yukimura knows them all. You were not my only choice, but you were the only one I wanted. And I think you're going to be the only one I want for a really long time." Danny looks at his hands, his usual forthright nature foundering before the enormity of what he's about to say. "Maybe even the longest time."

"Danny," Stiles breathes, soft and a little broken, "I didn't know." He sinks onto the bed beside Danny, their shoulders brushing.

Danny laughs jaggedly. "You have so much to offer, and I count myself lucky to be the one who gets to take you up on that offer." He nudges Stiles with his elbow. "Come on. You know I came out to my parents when I was 11 by telling them I had to have a rich husband so we could buy a hundred babies. This isn't a new thought for me, Stiles. You're just the first guy I've been serious enough about to discuss it with."

"Well, then...I guess I'm flattered," Stiles says with a shaky laugh. He rubs his hands over his face and slumps more solidly against Danny's side. "And of course, I handled the conversation with my usual tact."

Danny snickers. "Don't worry about it. I sprung it on you badly."

"I think about it _a lot_ , okay? I think about us having kids, and other people having kids, and I...sometimes I want it, but—fuck. I am going to be, like, the _world’s worst father_ , do you get that? I have ADHD, panic disorder, recurring depression, and chronic insomnia. Yeah, the frontotemporal dementia was the Nogitsune's trick, but I'm still predisposed to it. I don't give my dad crap about his diet _just_ to be an asshole; Stilinski men have a _long_ history of heart disease. I spend most of my time getting either mauled or possessed by supernatural beings, and even if that _weren't_ true, I'd still be in and out of the hospital every other week because I have the grace and self-preservation instinct of, like, a newborn deer. I'm also really _really_ scared of babies. And they know it."

Danny takes Stiles' nearer hand in both of his. _This_ he has plenty of practice dealing with. "You also have a brilliant mind and unshakeable loyalty. You run with a pack who would fight to the death for you—and you _know_ they'd do the same for any kid of yours. Everybody's got bad shit in their DNA. We'd deal with any of it. Yeah, you're klutzy, but kids are way sturdier than you think. And you're afraid of them because you don't have a lot of experience with them. We can fix that. We can ease you into this, if that's what it takes."

"Yeah?" Danny hears tentative hopefulness in Stiles' voice, and also the beginnings of a scheme. He finds this both comforting and alarming. "I mean, there's gotta be websites or books or something…"

"The hospital always needs volunteers in peds and the NICU," Danny offers. "I bet Melissa would love to set you up."

"I'll, uh—" Stiles clears his throat. "I'll think about it."

Danny's mildly disappointed that Stiles isn't jumping on this enthusiastically. But...it's progress.

"You know," Stiles muses, "this didn't go badly, for one of our fights." He smiles, but that smile could wobble off his face at any second, and a pinging pulse, like a submarine distress signal, chimes through Danny's magic.

Danny takes a second to think--really think--about where things stand between them. He's observed his parents and his friends' parents enough to know that every couple has an Issue (capitalization absolutely required) that they circle around to time and again, a core disagreement that all fights come back to, given enough time. Kids are shaping up to be his and Stiles', and he suspects that if they have any, parenting strategy will continue to dominate their arguments.

Danny is okay with this realization. For the first time in months, he sees them staying together long enough to have those arguments, and the kids that go with them. He can wait for anything more--for now. He nods. "Yeah. I can live with it."

"Awesome." Tension leeches out of Stiles' shoulders. He slides his arm around Danny's lower back, and for a second they sit, enjoying the moment of calm silence. "He's a good little dude," Stiles says thoughtfully. Danny nods. Stiles gives him a sidelong glance. "A good little dude on the other side of the house."

"Stiles," Danny groans.

"I mean," Stiles says, "unless you don't want--"

"Of course I _want_ , Stiles, Jesus. But when your dad agreed to watch Derek, he didn't mean so we could have sex."

"I think he would tell us," Stiles says, running those damned fingers up Danny's inseam, "to take advantage of the moment while we have it. If he didn't specify a sex-free agreement, that's his problem."

"Ugh." Danny puts his hand over Stiles', immobilizing it for a long, deliberate beat. "You're still a terrible person, you know that?"

Stiles grins and places a lingering kiss below Danny's ear. "How do you live with me?"

"I worry more about how you live with yourself," Danny says. Then he curls his fingers around Stiles' and moves them two inches upward.

Smile sharpening, Stiles surges forward for a searing kiss. Danny gasps into it, fingers flexing around Stiles'. He brings his other hand to the nape of Stiles' neck, holding his head steady. Christ, but he could kiss Stiles for _days_ , the wet heat of his mouth, the sly nips of his teeth and playful flicks of his tongue.

Stiles slides their joined hands higher, until they hover agonizingly shy of Danny's hardening cock. He lowers his other hand to Danny's chest and uses the extra leverage to tip them backwards until Danny's back hits the mattress, Stiles braced over him with a broad smile. "Hi," Stiles says brightly.

Danny is helpless to do anything but smile back, drawing his fingers through the hair at the base of Stiles' skull. "Hey." He punctuates his greeting with a sharp upward cant of his hips.

Stiles inhales sharply, and his eyelids flutter closed for a second. "Dude," he whines.

"Generous babysitter or no," Danny says, rolling his hips again, a long, slow motion this time, "we don't have a ton of time. I need to analyze the data we collected last night before the pack meeting."

Stiles leans down and kisses him, fierce and dirty. "Ooh, baby," he murmurs, "talk median to me."

Danny can't fight the snicker that bubbles up as he nips Stiles' chin, the only place he can comfortably reach. "Did you even take stats?"

"Hey, I did great at stats." He frowns. "Well, technically, the Nogitsune did great at stats." Danny holds his breath, but Stiles shrugs and grinds his hips down. "It was a well-educated chaos spirit."

Danny exhales on a desperate laugh and leans up for a kiss that heats rapidly, all grabbing hands and slipping tongues.

Stiles wrenches away, hauling at Danny's shoulders. "Up, up," he says.

"I just got down here," Danny protests, but he lets Stiles manhandle him up and off the bed, where he makes dizzyingly fast work of their clothes. Stiles herds Danny back onto the bed, urging him to kneel. "Okay," Danny says as he complies, "you know we have _less_ time now, right?"

Stiles nuzzles at the nape of Danny's neck. "Plenty of time for this," he says. He runs his hands down Danny's sides, pressing extra hard against his thighs. Danny gets it then, and he nods. Yup. Plenty of time for that.

Danny braces a hand against the headboard while Stiles roots around the nightstand. Stiles is more coordinated than when they were in high school, but he still approaches most situations with more enthusiasm than precision. Danny's glad of the solid structure under his hand when Stiles kneels behind him and thrusts his lube-slick cock exuberantly between Danny's clenched thighs, dragging against the underside of Danny's dick.

Stiles lays one arm diagonally across Danny's chest, elbow by his hip, hand pressed flat against Danny's pec. Danny melts into the hold, wanting Stiles closer, always closer, wanting to get inside him, brain, body, and soul. Stiles grips Danny's hip so hard there'll be bruises--bruises Danny very much looks forward to. He reaches back, digs his fingers into the whipcord muscle of Stiles' thigh, hitching him that much nearer, but never near enough.

Stiles finds his rhythm, his mouth a brand against Danny's neck and shoulders, pouring out a near-constant cacophony of grunts, curses, and hot, damp exhalations. Danny bows his head, offering better access. His pulse races at the vulnerability of it, the uncertainty of not knowing whether or when Stiles might kiss or bite or…anything.

Stiles' thrusts speed up, and his voice drops in volume and pitch until it's little more than a subvocal growl. Danny feels the telltale tightening in his own body. He takes his hand off the headboard and holds two fingers up to Stiles' mouth. Stiles whimpers and latches on, sucking at Danny's fingers, licking into the space between. Danny's heart pounds. Stiles groans and comes in a rush, heat slicking over Danny's balls and the underside of his cock, and he bites at the fingers in his mouth, so hard he breaks skin. Danny gasps Stiles' name and comes, slumping back against Stiles' heaving chest like a romance novel heroine. He reaches up and covers Stiles' hand with his own as the post-orgasm hormones flood in, urging him to burrow in close and never let go. He's tempted to let them have their way.

Stiles trails kisses along Danny's sweat-damp hairline. Danny feels the smile in the curve of his lips. "Excellent time management, Mr. Mahealani," Stiles murmurs, and Danny has to turn his head and catch that ridiculous smirk with his own lips.

"We should shower," he says as they reluctantly part, "before we traumatize sensitive werewolf noses."

They manage to keep the shower brief for once and are back in their underwear and shorts when their phones start buzzing. They ignore the sound in favor of reaching for their shirts, but the buzzing doesn't stop, so Danny huffs and pulls his phone from his pocket.

**Lydia:** mtg moved up

**TO Lydia:** To when?

**Lydia:** NOW

"Fuck," he hisses. He thumbs the call button and snaps his fingers at Stiles. "They're coming now," he says, setting Stiles off on a string of profanities as the doorbell rings. Stiles doesn't bother pulling on his shirt as he stomps down the stairs, Danny close behind.

"What about Jordan?" Danny asks when Lydia answers, too pissed to bother with greetings.

"Someone can catch him up later," she says. "Kira and I found something we have to deal with right now. We're five minutes away."

Danny hangs up in time to hear Stiles tell Scott and Isaac, who're standing on the porch looking insufferably smug despite being rained on, "We could been having sex."

"Nope," Isaac says with a lecherous grin as they step inside and shake themselves off. "We waited 'til we heard you were done."

"Oh my god, you are the actual worst," Stiles gripes as he pulls on his shirt and follows them to the living room. He must actually be pissed since he's passing up the perfect set-up for a wet dog joke.

Sheriff Stilinski appears in the doorway between the living room and his office, Derek perched on his hip. Danny clenches his jaw and looks away, because "doting grandfather" is such a perfect look on the man that for a second Danny's angry at Stiles for not wanting to give him that at the earliest possible opportunity. He reminds himself that Stiles will be ready when he's ready and gets his head back into the game.

"Hello, boys," the sheriff says, seeming no more than mildly surprised to find Isaac and Scott in his living room three hours before they'd been expected.

The guys mumble their greetings, and Scott says, "Oh, Sheriff, Mom wants to know if she can stop by later. She wants to see Derek." Well, of courses he does. Derek's an adorable toddler, and Melissa's not getting grandkids anytime soon, either.

"Anytime," the sheriff says easily. He tweaks Derek's nose, startling a peal of laughter out of him as he half-heatedly attempts to squirm away. "I trust Deaton--" There's a chorus of scoffs that he glares down. "--but it'd be good to have someone with medical knowledge of actual human children look him over." Danny takes the sheriff's meaning, even if "actual human children" doesn't entirely apply.

Derek seems content in the sheriff's arms, but he keeps darting suspicious glances at Scott and Isaac. Scott doesn't look like he minds, but Isaac's eyes show clear distress at Derek's mistrust. Danny's casting about for a way to ease the tension when Isaac straightens his shoulders and takes three loping steps toward Derek and the sheriff. He doesn't quite make eye contact as he says, "That's a pretty dress, Derek."

A sunbeam smile breaks across Derek's face. "Thank you, Isaac!" he says cheerfully. "Kimmy gave it to me." He doesn't say anything else, but it's a clear peace offering.

The front door bangs open, and Lydia and Kira flurry inside, mid-argument, without bothering to knock or announce themselves. They seem much drier than Scott and Isaac, somehow. Well, if Danny were a raindrop, he wouldn't want to fall on Lydia Martin, either. Sheriff Stilinski raises his eyebrows at them, and Kira looks abashed as she drops her messenger bag onto the end table, next to Danny's laptop. Lydia raises her eyebrows back and sweeps Derek out of the sheriff's arms without so much as a by-your-leave. Danny tenses--there's a reason Lydia dates so many assholes, and it ain't just bad luck--but she shakes her head and says, "Oh, baby, those shoes with that dress? Don't worry; Auntie Lydia will make everything better." Derek stares at her with wide eyes.

Stiles huffs and takes Derek from her. "His shoes are fine, Lydia," he says, with a hard "don't test me" edge to his voice that has Lydia eyeing him with grudging respect.

Derek looks at Lydia and then at Kira. Identifying Kira as the path of least terror, he tilts his head at her and says, "Can I play with your hair?"

It's sometimes hard for Danny to remember, because he'd been on the periphery of the crazy werewolfery at that point, but Kira and Derek grew close during Stiles' possession. He's not sure if Derek reaching out to her now is him remembering that, the same way he "remembered" Jordan, or if it's his attempt to adjust to the fact that his pack contains, as he'd put it, "other wolfs and foxes." Either way, it's clear from Kira's besotted expression that she's going to accept Derek's request in the gooiest possible way.

Kira settles on the floor in front of Danny. Stiles places Derek in Danny's lap. Derek starts carding his fingers through Kira's hair, and she takes the tugging like a champ. When Lydia hums and rummages in her purse for a second, Danny watches with a half-protective, half-amused gaze that turns into a chuckle when she hands Derek a small, collapsible brush and a package of hair ties.

The sheriff watches them, thumbs hooked into his belt. "Want me to leave you to it?"

Kira bites her lip. "You should stay," she says. "In case this turns into something we need law enforcement for later." On the couch beside Danny, Scott mutters a quiet "Fuck," and Danny agrees too much to chide him for swearing in front of Derek.

"And someone get Cora on the phone," Lydia commands. Tendrils of dread unfurl in Danny's gut. With every word uttered, he loses hope for a favorable resolution to this.

"I got it," Stiles mutters. He makes the call, switching to speaker. His eyes are downcast, teeth worrying his lower lip, and from the glances Scott and Isaac keep darting his way, his heart-rate must be skyrocketing.

"I am trying to do a job here, Stilinski," Cora snaps as soon as she picks up. "These turtles aren't going to count themselves."

"Who's that?" Derek asks, eyeing Stiles' phone.

On the other end of the call, Cora's stillness is a near-palpable thing. "Is that him?" she asks, voice strangled.

"Yeah," Stiles says.

"Video," she snaps. "Video now, Stilinski, or I swear to god--"

Stiles switches the call to video and holds the phone up so she can see Derek. "Oh," she breathes. "Hi, Derek. I'm Cora." Her voice quavers with so much nostalgia and regret and loss. She never knew Derek at this age, but there must've been pictures.

Derek tilts his head this way and that, trying to understand how this woman got inside this box. What comes out of his mouth, though, is, "You look like my mommy."

Cora runs with it like a champ. "That's right," she says quickly, "I do. Because I'm your...cousin." Her words catch, the lie almost too much to utter for someone who's lost so much.

Apparently Derek can't hear Cora's heartbeat over the phone, because he says only, "Is she with you?" In his periphery, Danny sees Stiles nod, though he has to know this one will be a harder sell.

"She sure is," Cora says with forced brightness. "Your dad, too. But they're not here right now," she adds quickly, and Danny releases a breath. "They're counting turtles."

Derek's eyes light up. "I love turtles!"

Cora smiles softly. "I know you do," she says. It suddenly seems far from implausible that Derek's childhood love of turtles is part of the reason Cora's in the Galapagos in the first place. Living the life her brother might've, if his world hadn't burned to the ground in front of his eyes.

"Touching as this reunion is," Lydia says, tactful as ever, "we're on a tight timeline."

Something pinched and complicated happens to Cora's face. "Lydia," she says tightly.

"Mmm," Lydia replies. Then her face settles into its most serious pose, and she says, "What do you know about the Rayburn pack?"

Infamous Hale eyebrows pop up. "Rayburn? Northeast of here?" Lydia nods, and Danny flashes on last night in the forest, Lydia waving Isaac toward the northeast to pursue the witches. Cora purses her lips. "Funny, but they were one of the packs Derek mentioned when we were traveling." In his lap, Derek makes a questioning sound; Danny murmurs, "Different Derek," and it's close enough to true that Derek doesn't hear the lie. "It's a nice territory," Cora says, "but we drove straight through it, even though we'd been on the road for twenty hours at that point. Derek said--" She swallows. "He said Mom never trusted them, and that she told him and Laura to have as little to do with them as possible. It was the only territory where we didn't at least text the alpha's second to say we were passing through."

"The reason for that," Lydia says tartly, "is that the Rayburn pack is a conniving bag of dicks." Everyone sputters, and Scott belatedly leans over and claps his hands over Derek's ears. "Your great-grandmother entered into a treaty with them in the 1930s that must have been magically coerced, because I can't imagine why else she'd have agreed to it. I emailed Deaton a copy. If the contract was forged or compelled, it's unenforceable. It's loaded with ridiculous crap, but the most important clause says if the territory goes more than 72 hours without a Hale who's reached the age of majority, it's open to challenge."

"It's always open to challenge," Isaac says, frowning. "I mean, that's one of the things we thought the alpha pack was coming for, at first."

"There's powerful magic tying the Hales to this land," Cora says. "For generations back. If the terms of the treaty break that, Scott would have a much harder time defending against challengers."

"Great," Stiles snipes. "Like our lives weren't difficult enough already."

"Now, wait," Sheriff Stilinski protests. "Derek and Laura were gone almost six years after the fire."

"But Peter was here," Scott says. "He was comatose, but he was a Hale."

"And when Cora and Derek left after the Nemeton?"

"Malia," several voices say in uniso.

"She was hardly an adult," the sheriff says.

"Werewolf culture considers thirteen the age of majority," Cora says.

Scott and Stiles start humming "Werewolf bar Mitzvah." Danny smacks Stiles' leg and glares at Scott, who grins unrepentantly.

"So we have--" Danny checks Stiles' phone and continues, [NB1] "--49 hours to either get the spell off Derek or find an adult Hale to restore the territorial magic."

"We're talking to an adult Hale," Isaac says, waving at the phone.

"Yes, Isaac," Cora says with the overly patient tone that means her patience is about to snap, "one who's hanging out with giant turtles in South America. It'll take me almost that long to get to an airport."

Uneasy silence fills the room until Kira says gently, "Malia?"

"Does anyone know where she is?" Scott asks.

Everyone looks at Stiles, but it's Lydia who says, "No, but we know how to find her." Stiles and Danny nod in confirmation.

"Okay," Scott says, rubbing his hands on his shorts. "Lydia and Danny start on that."

"What about me?" Stiles asks.

"You," Scott says with a sly grin, "are going to think about lessons."

Stiles' answering look drips skepticism. "Lessons," he repeats flatly.

"Deaton says maybe you have to learn something before we can get Derek back to normal. So..." He reaches behind Danny and slaps Stiles' shoulder. "Get learning."

Stiles stares at Scott, mouth agape. "You know, I never realized until this moment how much I hate you." He taps his finger against his lips. "Does it matter anymore? I mean, if these witches are working with the Rayburn pack to fulfill the terms of this crazy-ass contract, Derek was the target all along. Shouldn't he be the one learning a lesson?"

"What lesson would a four-and-a-half-year-old learn?" Lydia says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Don't eat paste?"

Stiles gives a grating victory laugh, and Lydia turns a dispassionate gaze to Danny's glare.

"Didn't think you'd have to study over break, did you, son?" the sheriff asks Stiles, grinning.

"Oh my god!" Danny hands Derek to Scott and lunges across Stiles to grab his laptop off the end table. "We're idiots."

Lydia sniffs. "Speak for yourself."

"This is the third time someone's mentioned how lucky we are that it's summer break." His fingers fly over the keyboard, brain racing as he tries to best formulate what he's looking for. "What if that's not a coincidence?"

They stare at him for a second, then Kira's eyes widen. "Teachers?"

"School employees of some sort, yeah." He drums his fingers on his knee. The connection he needs is on the edge of his awareness, but he can't bring it into focus.

"Oh! Isaac!" Kira waves her hand at Isaac, though she can't turn her head because of whatever Derek's doing with her hair. "Tell them what you found out."

Isaac grins. "When I was heading back last night, I ran into Alpha Frank." Given what Danny remembers about the Frank-McCoy band, he translates this as "met her at a bar that doesn't card and wheedled her into buying me illegal alcohol that can't even get me drunk." "She was telling me about this clothing-optional resort called Underwood. She says it's popular with the witchy types in the area. It's in their territory, but it's almost at their border with the Rayburn pack."

Stiles slaps Danny's arm. "How come you've never taken me to nudey witch camp?"

Danny ignores him. "Thank you, Isaac. I can work with that. Scott, give me 30 minutes and I'll be able to cross-reference every guest who's checked into Underwood in the past month with every school employee in California, Oregon, and Washington. It might not fix anything, but at least we'll know who these bas--bad people are."

"Great!" Scott says. "Lydia, can you handle the magical tracking on your own?"

"Of course."

"Would it help if one of us came with you, like an assistant kind of thing?"

Lydia considers. "I'll take Kira," she says.

Scott reaches down and squeezes Kira's shoulder in silent question; she covers his hand with hers in answer.

"This treaty," the sheriff [NB2] says thoughtfully. "Chris Argent told me once that sometimes, if two packs think things might get out of hand in a negotiation, they ask a neutral third party to witness. He said sometimes that was an Argent, back when they all followed the Code. In the 1930s, it could've been them. You think he has records?"

A heavy pall settles over the room. Everyone shifts, unwilling to meet the sheriff's eyes. Isaac clears his throat. "We, uh, we don't like to bother Chris."

The sheriff's expression hardens. "You don't like seeing Chris, because you don't like thinking about what happened to Allison. But if he has resources you can use, you'd be morons to pass them up." When no one can bring themselves to answer, the sheriff lets out a sharp, frustrated breath and says, "Fine. I'll talk to him."

"Thank you, Sheriff," Scott says. He looks around. "Okay. Everybody's got their instructions?"

"I don't," Isaac says.

"Oh. Uh..." Scott looks around again, but everything seems to be well in hand. "Tea party?"

Kira shrieks. " _Scott McCall, don't you dare have a tea party without us!_ "

"Hey, Cora," Danny calls, "before everything gets weird--about the dresses..."

Cora sighs and rubs her cheeks with her palms. "Okay, I was 11 when the fire happened; my memory of anything before it is sketchy. But, yeah, for a long time he wouldn't wear anything but dresses in the house. Maybe even out of it. Sheriff Stilinski might remember."

Danny lifts his gaze to the sheriff, who's looking wide-eyed at Derek. "I must've--" Derek stares back with the intensity Danny's used to seeing on the full-sized model. "I must've convinced myself I was remembering Laura or Cora."

"Could've been any of us."

"For how long?" Kira asks.

Cora's expression fills with a complicated mix of fondness and anger. "Until he was thirteen," she says. "I don't know why he stopped, but if I had to guess, I'd say Peter."

Fucking Peter. Danny barely knew the guy, and sometimes he wishes he were still alive so they could kill him again. "Okay, thanks," he says. "I just wanted to know what reaction he was used to."

"None at all." Cora smiles. "Though I do remember an epic sulk when he outgrew one of his favorites and Mom said he couldn't wear it anymore."

Danny snickers, picturing a Derek Hale epic sulk. Then his laughter falters because, shit, if one happens now, he and Stiles will have to deal with it.

There's mischief in Cora's laugh, and Danny knows she's had the same thought. "Peace out, jerks," she says, "my Testudinata need me. Bye, Derek."

"Bye, Cora!" Derek waves cheerily. "Tell my mommy and daddy to come home soon."

"Yeah." The joy is stripped from her voice. "Yeah, I will." She ends the call before anyone can offer a word of comfort--not that they know any.

"Well," Sheriff Stilinski says, "I'll leave you to your tea party, then." He stands and walks out of the room without a backward glance.

Lydia nods decisively. "Right. Scott and Danny can set up the room." She fixes them with a glare that tells them what fate awaits them if they _can't_ set up the room. "Isaac will make tea, because he's the only one who's good at it."

Isaac does a victory fist-pump. "Finally my British grandparents are good for something."

Lydia smiles thinly at him. "Kira and I are going to Georgie's for cupcakes.”

Scott blinks, looking unsure of where he lost control of the situation. Then he nods and says, "Sounds great." Stiles snorts.

"Stiles," Lydia says, "get Derek bathed and dressed."

"He is dressed," Stiles says, but Lydia gives him _that look,_ so he takes Derek's hand and leads him upstairs.

Scott and Danny unearth a lace table runner from the laundry room linen closet and put it on the dining room table. They set seven places with Stiles' grandmother's good china, which hasn't been used since Claudia's wake--fragile bone-white plates and cups with dainty yellow rosebuds along the edges. Danny finds a yellow t-shirt in the Goodwill donation bag and cuts it into eight pieces that vaguely resemble napkins. The rain stops, and rays of sunlight make the china teacups sparkle. The Stilinski dining room has never looked this…genteel.

Scott and Isaac keep tilting their heads toward the upstairs bathroom and snickering. Danny grumbles until Scott grins apologetically and says, "Bath time's not going how Stiles expected."

Lydia and Kira return with two giant bakery boxes that Isaac tries to take out of their hands. Lydia holds hers out of reach and shoves a bulging plastic shopping bag at him instead. "We'll take care of the cupcakes," she says. "You three, go change."

Scott tilts his head. "Change?"

"We raided your closets," Kira says without a hint of remorse. "Go."

The guys return to the laundry room, which is big enough for all of them to change. Isaac roots through the bag and says, "I'm not sure what the idea is here, but those women terrify me." He pulls a handful of clothes from the bag and thrusts them at Scott. "Pretty sure these are yours."

None of them would leave home dressed like this. Hell, _Stiles_ wouldn't leave home dressed like this, and he usually can't be bothered to care about his clothes beyond obvious rips and stains. Danny's wearing a pair of ancient, loose jeans he thought he'd thrown away years ago and a maroon shirt with a white orchid on it. Scott and Isaac both have weird, loose yoga-type pants; Isaac's wearing a faded gray Henley that looks really soft; and Scott's in an honest-to-god Care Bear t-shirt which, since it fits, was probably a joke gift from Stiles.

They stare at each other, trying to fathom what the hell Lydia was thinking, letting them go around like this. Then it hits him: this is for Derek. This is them trying to be softer. To show Derek the side of themselves that isn't roars and fangs and using magic to run off enemy witches.

Five minutes later, Stiles leads Derek into the kitchen. Derek's back in the green and black dress and exceptionally crooked ladybug barrettes, and he's somehow wheedled Stiles into khakis and a soft blue Henley that may be Danny's. There's a crap plastic lei wrapped around Derek's wrist, and Danny struggles not to yank it off and go off on an age-inappropriate lecture on cultural appropriation.

The instant Derek takes in the teapot and the serving plate mounded with tiny cupcakes, his entire body starts vibrating. "Are those for me?" he whispers.

" _Some_ ," Danny says, laughing. " _Some_ of them are for you."

Derek nods, but his gaze doesn't leave the plate. Stiles grins. "What are we waiting for?" He rests his hand between Derek's shoulder blades and nudges him toward the living room. Instead of taking off, though, he walks over and pats Scott's leg until Scott crouches down, a faint frown ghosting across his face. "What's up, Derek?"

"Are you really an alpha?" Derek asks.

"I sure am." Scott's eyes flash red.

Derek tilts his head, baring his neck to Scott, but it only lasts a second and then he's smiling shyly and unwrapping the plastic lei on his wrist. Danny hisses, but Stiles shushes him. Once the lei's unwound, Derek loops it once and places it, with great dignity, on Scott's head. Isaac laughs so hard he chokes, and Stiles doesn't even try for subtlety as he whips out his phone and takes a picture. When Danny's phone buzzes seconds later, he sees Stiles sent the picture to the entire pack list, including Dad, Melissa, and Jordan.

"Thanks, Derek," Scott says, sounding choked up.

"Alpha wears the crown. Laura says so." Derek frowns before adding, "Laura wears the crown a lot."

Danny chuckles, thinking about Cora's lesson on situational alphahood. He regrets never having met Laura.

They've all taken a lot more pictures by the time the tea party's done. Flower-crowned Scott pouring tea for Derek. Kira laughing while Isaac wipes frosting off his cheek. Stiles' shaky shot of his own hand, Derek's small fingers wrapped around it, as he instructs Stiles in the proper way to hold his teacup. Jordan, Melissa, and Kira set the tea-pouring picture as their phones' home screens. Kimmy, Jordan, and Melissa express disappointment at not being invited, but you can't win them all.

*

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. Danny runs home for a couple hours while his witch-finding algorithm runs. His parents try to convince him to stay for dinner, but he spins a half-lie about Sheriff Stilinski inviting Jordan and Derek for dinner and needing to help Stiles cook.

The instant Danny comes back through the Stilinski front door, Stiles thrusts Derek into his arms. Both their expressions are thunderous, and Derek's eyes are red and puffy. "Don't leave again," Stiles commands and storms into the kitchen. Danny rubs his cheek against Derek's and tries not to feel guilty about leaving Stiles to deal with Derek's meltdown alone.

Over dinner, Jordan looks pale and distressed as they explain about the Rayburn treaty. "Why would the old alpha agree to that?" he asks.

Danny gives a "search me" shrug. "Why would they bother with that provision in the first place? I mean, it's a weird condition, and it took over eighty years to be fulfilled. What did anyone get out of that?"

"I don't know," Stiles admits, pushing away his plate and leaning back in his chair. "I feel like we're missing something, you know? I _hate_ feeling like that."

Everyone agrees, but they can't do anything about it now, so they take their low-fat ice cream into the living room and introduce Derek to _Frozen,_ bidding Jordan a hushed good-night when Derek conks out ten minutes before the closing credits roll.

When Danny collapses onto Stiles' bed, it's barely ten, but he feels like he's been up for _days_. And Derek's a low-key kid. He's struck once again with awed respect for the sheriff, who kept pace with Stiles' top speed throughout his childhood _and_ did it solo after Stiles' mom died.

Stiles is sitting against his headboard, drinking valerian tea and making totally adorable grimaces at the smell, which he compares to "moldy catnip." But when Danny reaches into the nightstand for his away bag of magical supplies (Stiles has one in Danny's room), Stiles shakes his head. "I think I'm good tonight." He waves his mug around. "I have the tea to calm me down, but I think--" He bites his lip and looks at Derek, dead to the world in the toddler bed. "I didn't like what that did to me last night," he says, jerking his chin toward the bag in Danny's hands. "This morning I kept thinking that if anything had happened to you guys, I would've been too out of it to be any help."

Danny's not going to cry, okay? He's best friends with Jackson Whittemore and Derek Hale; he doesn't _cry_. But the fact that Stiles is _trying_ , that something about having this kid in their lives, however temporarily, makes him want to be more present, more aware? That's doing things to Danny's heart. Gooey, squishy things he's not entirely comfortable with.

Danny removes the mug from Stiles' fingers and sets it on the nightstand beside his magic kit. He slides down until he's on his side, pulling Stiles down beside him. He tucks his front against Stiles' back and rests his hand on Stiles' hip. He remembers the nightmares after the Nogitsune. Remembers that when Stiles feels out of control, he needs to feel supported but not caged. Stiles heaves a sigh that leaves his body limp. "Let us help you, instead," Danny murmurs against Stiles' shoulder. "Let us look out for you."

He expects a joke about the efficacy of toddlers, even of the supernatural variety, in a crisis. Instead, Stiles nods, settles more securely against Danny, and whispers, "Thank you," on a breath that's halfway to sleep.

They never hear the window open.


	3. Day 3: Underwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The open window, the naked witches, and the overprotective father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning in this chapter for veiled racist insults and general talk of a supremacist nature.

Stiles wakes the next morning feeling drugged and groggy, sleepier than when he'd gone to bed the night before.

Danny's out cold, and Stiles wonders how his sleep continues uninterrupted when he'd been up so early yesterday. Oh, right—the kid must not have bugged him this morning.

Speaking of—Stiles climbs over Danny and slips out of bed. Danny doesn't move, which is odd; he's the lighter sleeper of the two of them. Stiles crosses to the cot, and his sleep-heavy brain takes longer than it should to register how flat it looks, the covers flipped back to reveal an absence of werewolfy toddler. Stiles rubs his hand over his face and tries to think. He knows Derek woke up Danny to take him to the bathroom yesterday, but that was because he'd forgotten where it was. If he remembers now, he wouldn't need the chaperone.

Stiles eases the door past its squeaky point and pads to the bathroom. The door's open and the light's off. He raps his knuckles against the open door anyway, in case Derek's behind it for some reason. "Derek?" When there's no answer, he walks into the room and rustles the shower curtain. "Derek, you in here?" he calls, though he damned well knows the answer.

Panic tickles the top of Stiles' spine, but he wills it away and forces himself to breathe, deep and even, like he's been taught by every therapist ever. Derek knows his way around much more of the house now: the kitchen, Dad's office with its giant computer monitor hooked up to the DVD player, even the attic where Dad found the cot. Hell, there's half a chance Derek crawled into bed with Dad, like Stiles used to do at that age.

But Stiles…Stiles has _instincts,_ okay? It's part and parcel of the spark gig, and it's strongest here, on his home turf. And those instincts are screaming that Derek is no longer within Stilinski property boundaries. He runs back to his room, because he'll need Danny's particular magical talents to be sure. "Da—" The word dies in his throat as he throws open the door and a cool breeze smacks him in the face. The window is open. _The window is open_. The window he _always_ leaves closed and locked and lined with mountain ash because werewolves have no damned sense of privacy, no matter how many times they've tumbled into the room while he and Danny are having sex. The window is open wide, curtains blow mockingly in the early morning breeze, and Derek is nowhere in the house. "Danny, _wake up_."

Danny wakes and sits up instantly, though true alertness is too much to ask pre-coffee. He looks confused and sleep-mussed and adorable, and under any other circumstances, Stiles would be pinning him to the bed and putting the morning on hold. But right now Stiles is shaking so hard he can barely control his voice as he says, "Derek's gone. I think the witches have him."

Danny's eyes flare blue-green, looking for what Stiles sensed: an echo of unknown magic, of someone outside the pack who wished them harm. The small stone of dread in Stiles' stomach turns into a goddamned boulder, because he and Danny are _good_ at what they do—protective magic being a particular specialty of Stiles'—and if the coven could get past their wards without their noticing, then this is going to be a nastier fight than they've anticipated.

"They must've spelled us," Stiles adds. "Do you feel groggy?"

Danny nods. He's already moving, running his hands along the windowsill, measuring something, somehow. His magic works just enough differently from Stiles' that they don't always get what the other is doing. Then Stiles feels the tickle, like light rain against his skin, that means Danny is using his spark for something. He holds still and waits, and after a minute Danny slaps his palms against the sill. " _Fuck_ ," he hisses, so out of character that Stiles draws back, terrified of what he'll see when Danny turns toward him. But Danny stays facing the window, shoulders hunched, like he's not certain of his control. "He's been gone at least four hours," he says.

"Damn it." Nothing in Stiles' body feels like it fits right now, and his thoughts whirl in too many directions to grab onto any of them.

Danny's hands grip his shoulders, the heat of his skin and the pinch of his fingers pulling Stiles back into himself. "Stiles." He stares at Stiles' eyes until they're _really_ looking at each other. "Go downstairs and grab my laptop. The algorithm should've spit out any names it found. Tell your dad what's going on; have him print out the names and start background checks. I'll start the phone tree. One foot in front of the other, right? That's the only way we can get through this."

"I don't know what I'd do without you," Stiles tells him.

"I don't know what we'd do without each other," Danny corrects him. He uses his hold on Stiles' shoulders to turn him toward the door and steer him out of the room.

Stiles moves on autopilot, "one foot in front of the other" becoming his literal mantra as he makes his way through the house. Danny's algorithm has found six names, all employees of a charter school close to Underwood. Stiles bets the school's within Rayburn pack territory.

He knocks on Dad's bedroom door and waits for the groggy and confused call to come in. If those assholes spelled his father too—but Dad seems the normal amount of tired for having gotten off shift at 3 this morning. He rubs his hand over his face and adopts a "this better be good" expression that slides off his face the instant he gets a good look at Stiles. Stiles mostly swallows a hysterical giggle; he has no idea what he looks like now, but it must be god-awful. "Dad," he says, and his voice breaks. He throws himself across the room into his father's strong arms. Time contorts around him, and for a nightmare moment he can't remember if he's a ten-year-old grieving his mother's death, a 17-year-old no longer certain who's controlling his mind, or a 19-year-old who's lost a family he hadn't known he'd wanted. "Dad, they have him. He's gone."

Dad pales. He pushes Stiles aside and rises, pulling on his glasses and charging out of the bedroom, heedless of his bare feet and ancient pajamas. "Those the names?" he asks, pointing at the laptop that's fallen to the floor by the couch. When Stiles nods, unable to trust his voice, Dad picks it up and heads back toward his bedroom—and his clothes. He pauses, doubles back, and squeezes the back of Stiles' neck. "We'll find him, kiddo," he says. "This won't stand."

The plan remains the same; they just move up the timeline, with Dad ordering everyone into motion the _instant_ he prints out the covenmembers' surprisingly long criminal records (does this school not run background checks?). Scott, Isaac, and Melissa travel in the lead car; Lydia and Kira follow; and Stiles, Danny, and Dad bring up the rear after stopping at the station to pick up Jordan.

Stiles catches Jordan's eye in the rearview. "How you holding up, man?"

Jordan gives a snort of humorless laughter and stares at his fingers. "How should I be?" he asks with a helpless shrug. "Derek's—" He stops, draws a deep breath, and falls silent for a minute. Everyone else holds their breath. Stiles steals little looks at Danny; he tries to imagine Danny in Derek's position and himself in Jordan's, but every time he comes close to the image, his mind skitters back as though from a yawning abyss.

"He does this thing," Jordan says abruptly, voice low, words tumbling over each other. "When we sleep, he—well, you two know how it is." His gaze flicks up to Stiles and Danny and then slides away. "Shifters run warm." Stiles and Danny nod, because they _absolutely_ know. "But he insists on pulling up the covers at night like a normal human. So in the middle of the night, he overheats and throws all the covers off. _All_ the covers—even the ones on my side. So there I am, no sheet or blanket, freezing my ass off, and Derek, he..." Jordan gives an incredulous laugh, and Stiles wonders if he's ever said this out loud, ever thought this quirk of Derek's through enough to share it with anyone else. "It's like he knows I'm cold but is too asleep to do anything coherent about it. So he just—he throws himself on top of me, like _he's_ a blanket." A desperate giggle escapes Jordan's mouth. "I lie there, night after night, smothered under my werewolf quilt, and I—it was almost a deal-breaker when I started thinking about moving in with him. Could I subject myself to that for the long haul?" Jordan sniffs and looks out the window. "I haven't slept more than an hour either night he's been gone."

Stiles drums his fingers against the steering wheel and lets out a slow breath. He itches to fix this, to make it better for Jordan, but what options does he really have? They'll get Derek back. They'll reverse the spell. It's all they _can_ do.

The drive to Underwood takes an hour, and by the time they get there Stiles feels closer to a panic attack than he has since the doomsday hound fiasco last year. He only holds it together by thinking constantly of Derek, how scared he must be, how much he needs them. He's glad the ride isn't longer, because he's not sure how much more juice was in that strategy.

Underwood is a sprawling place. They leave the cars in a dirt lot and walk through a copse of cedar trees, over a bridge across a rushing creek, and through a meadow filled with naked picnickers. Stiles _hates_ that they're suffering this indignity on such a gorgeous day, sunny and warm with a gentle breeze swaying the tops of the trees. They find the cul-de-sac of cabins Danny's search identified as the coven's and automatically fall into the order of attack.

"Everybody remembers the plan, right?" Scott says. "Jordan and Sheriff Stilinski first; then Lydia and the magic users; werewolves and kitsune as a last resort. Top priority is finding Derek and getting him away _safely_. Get him to my mom as soon as you have him." He turns to Jordan and Dad, probably to thank them for their help, but falters when he sees they've removed the marks of their station, including weapons. "Uh, what are you doing?"

Dad rolls his eyes and squeezes Scott's shoulder. "Son, we are out of our jurisdiction, geographically and..." He taps his fingers against his belt.

"Metaphysically," Jordan offers.

Dad snorts. "We're walking in there as concerned members of the Hale-McCall pack, nothing more or less." Which is bullshit, because they'd flashed their badges to get into the camp in the first place.

"Oh, great, I feel reassured," Stiles grouses, then glares off identical disapproving looks from Scott, Danny, and Dad. "Okay, fine," he snaps, looking away. "Just don't come crying to me if you get hexed or vaporized or whatever because they turn out to be asshole witches who don't respect humans."

"Stiles, come on," Jordan says and touches Stiles' arm. "I'm sure it won't be—"

"But you're not, okay? You're not sure, and you shouldn't be. Because these people _kidnapped a four-year-old_ and are in league with a lawless pack with a serious hard-on for the Hale territory. You have no idea what you're walking into, and you can make no guarantees." He rubs his hand over his face and tries to even his breathing.

"They have their handcuffs," Isaac points out.

"We're not _stupid_ ," Jordan says, sounding put out.

Stiles rubs his face with both hands. "Just—if you— _you_ , Parrish—" He glares extra-hard at Jordan. "—feel the need to be a hero, remember we're gonna get Derek back and fixed. Think about his reaction if he finds out something happened to you because of him."

Jordan's lips tighten, but he nods at Stiles, then at Danny, and turns to Dad. "Ready, Sheriff?"

"As I'll ever be," Dad says. He gives Stiles something like a smile. "You're handling things well, son," he says. "I'm proud of you." He raises his voice and adds, "All of you."

Everyone mumbles, "Thank you, Sheriff." They sound pretty subdued.

Dad and Jordan stride toward the cabin on the far right of the cul-de-sac while the others linger by the path, shadowed beneath the trees, close enough that they won't need to rely on werewolf hearing to know if they need to step in. Dad raps on the cabin door, and Stiles stifles a desperate laugh, thinking of the hundreds of times he's done this—just a normal house-to-house, ma'am, no magical foul play suspected.

After an agonizing pause, the door cracks open, and Stiles catches a glimpse of golden hair, high up. The high priestess, then. "Who are you, and what do you want?" she demands.

"Jem Cole?" Dad asks pleasantly.

The woman stiffens. "I do not answer to that name in this place."

Stiles can't hear his dad sigh, but he sees it in the hitch of his shoulders. "Ms. Brünnhilde," he says, which is hilarious in its own right.

Brünnhilde opens the door infinitesimally wider. "What is your business, paladin?" she asks, and Stiles curses both her reversion to needlessly flowery language and her observational skills. Even absent guns and uniforms and badges, something about the way Dad and Jordan hold themselves screams "cop."

"No paladins today, ma'am," Jordan says with that easy grin that's fooled so many criminals and caught the best-guarded heart in California. "Just concerned pack members."

"Pack? Oh! Oh, yes, now I see." Stiles sees the flashing edge of a wicked smile, and his flesh crawls. The door opens wide, and High Priestess Brünnhilde steps onto the cracked, dusty stoop of the cabin.

She's towering, with straight blond hair that cascades to the small of her back. She's stark naked, wearing her skin with more confidence and poise than Lydia wears her finest dress. She cuts an imposing figure of curves and muscle. She won't be an easy opponent, should it come to a physical fight.

By far the most terrifying thing about her is her smile. It's smug and knowing, and Stiles' heart sinks. He's been holding out hope that both the spell and the abduction are mistakes, regrettable misunderstandings they'll laugh about someday, and that as soon as Jordan and Dad explained that they've misplaced their de-aged werewolf, Brünnhilde would apologize for her rash covenmate, reverse the spell, and return Derek to them. Or maybe it would turn out that they had nothing to do with Derek's disappearance. Brünnhilde's smile says they knew exactly what they were doing when the spell hit Derek instead of Stiles and when they bespelled Stiles and Danny to steal Derek out from under them.

"Tell me, paladins," Brünnhilde says, raising her voice as if she knows the others are near, "how is the child? No trouble with the tiny claws, I trust? Or have you perhaps, wisely, entrusted his care to more suitable guardians?"

Stiles barely sees Jordan move before Dad's hand clamps around his wrist. "Ma'am," Dad says, and though his voice is perfectly calm and rational, its earlier traces of friendliness have vanished. "I recommend you return our packmate and undo whatever your associate did to him." Stiles won't lie: hearing Dad refer to himself as part of the pack will never stop being awesome. And also hilarious. Because it obviously makes him hella uncomfortable.

Brünnhilde's laugh is exactly how Stiles imagined an audible version of that awful smile. "Oh dear, Sheriff, have you _lost_ him?" Her use of Dad's title chills Stiles. _I know who you are_ , it says. _I know where you are weakest_. "That often happens in...mixed packs. Muddied blood lines and magical strains. Harder to feel the bonds between members."

Stiles' vision fuzzes out for a minute, and when it comes back, he nods. "Phase two," he says, voice grim. He looks to Scott for formal permission, but he'd've gone forward without the terse nod Scott gives him. As Lydia and Danny fall in beside him, he hears shifting at their backs: Melissa and Isaac slipping around the back of the cabin to search for Derek; Kira running pre-battle stretches; Scott extending and retracting his claws, one by one. Stiles doesn't blame them. This is going to escalate quickly.

Two things have happened by the time Stiles, Danny, and Lydia reach the cabin. One, Jordan and Dad are now mutually holding each other back from an attack they'll regret. Two, the rest of the coven has stepped into the clearing.

There are five of them, three women and two men. The sixth must be inside with Derek. They look like they stepped out of a nude production of the Ring Cycle. All pale and blond, four statuesque and thickly muscled, the fifth short and elfin, but flashing Stiles seriously crazy eyes. Like, Argents-on-a-bad-day levels of crazy. His memories of the fight are hazy, but he thinks this is the woman who threw the spell that hit Derek.

"Look, Hela," Brünnhilde says gently, as though to a child, and Stiles tries not to snort. _Hela_. Witches, man. What even. "Your friend from the mongrel pack is here." She shakes her head sadly. "A witch, a spark, and a banshee. Don't you children realize how powerful you could be if you stuck to your own kind?"

Stiles' skin crawls. During the fight, the witches were robed and hooded. Now that he's seeing them in the flesh ( _so much_ flesh), it makes a sickening sense that they would be working with the purity-obsessed Rayburn pack. He deflects behind sarcasm, but the tremor comes through loud and clear in his voice. "You know," he murmurs to Danny, "maybe you, Scott, and Kira should take this one, on principle."

Lydia snorts. "I doubt the Wagner Five are going to prove particularly pro-Semitic."

"Okay, fine." Stiles waves his hand. "Isaac, too."

Brünnhilde's lips curl in a sneer. "Share with the class, Rotkäppchen?"

Stiles' knees lock, and his bones feel like iron rods. On either side, Danny and Lydia catch their breath. She shouldn't know that name. _No one_ should know that name. Only Danny, Lydia, and Deaton had been at the ritual where he'd reluctantly taken it, and he's never used it since.

He feels the moment Danny draws up, _done_ with this woman's shit. "You are going to give Derek back and undo your spell," he says evenly, "and you're going to do it now."

"And why would I do that?" There's genuine curiosity in Brünnhilde's voice, and Stiles is curious, too. As far as he can see, the coven holds all the cards. They have Derek. They know the spell and how to reverse it. Sure, the pack would figure it out, but not by the end of their allotted 72 hours. And the coven has no incentive to aid them. The Rayburn pack is small, but they're determined and willing to at least make noises of alliance at the coven. Under better circumstances, the Hale-McCall pack might've counter-offered, giving the coven access to their land, and the Nemeton, in exchange for their help. Now that they're proving to be child-abducting, neo-fascist creepsters, that offer is so totally off the table.

Danny's not one for monologing. He shrugs. "Won't go well for you, telling the Rayburns you lost a fight to a pack of mongrels."

Brünnhilde's face hardens. "Trust me. We won't lose."

Danny's expression is equally hard. "You will. I know your kind."

Stiles feels the moment crystallize around him. This is the last chance to salvage this encounter. He could crack a joke right now, something about getting off to a bad start, maybe they could step back and try again. Or the pack could walk away—turn around, drive back to Beacon Hills, let the Shasta County Sheriff's Department get Derek back, and find the spell themselves.

But then he imagines some stranger reigning as alpha of Beacon Hills. He thinks about werewolves obsessed with flawed notions of "purity" forcing his friends—his _father_ —out of their homes or killing them. Werewolves this coven calls allies. So, no. There will be no negotiation. No retreat. Stiles flexes his fingers, begins to draw magic into the tips.

Into the ominous stillness that's descended over the clearing, Danny says quietly, "Don't try to coordinate attacks. Just do what you do best." Only Dad and Jordan won't have heard that, and they'll catch on soon enough.

The brilliant simplicity of Danny's strategy hits Stiles, and if they weren't about to jump into battle with a coven of underhanded witches, he'd be kissing the shit outta his boyfriend right now.

Homogenous groups like the coven do provide certain advantages. Training and strategizing are easy when the people you'll be fighting alongside are like you. You can move together, anticipate each other's actions. The coven is a cohesive unit in a way the pack never will be.

But there are glaring disadvantages. From the pack's standpoint, the best one is that, while the coven's unbeatable at its strengths, its weakness are are magnified fivefold.

Right now its biggest weaknesses is its staggering arrogance, its revulsion at having to deal with this motley gang, and its unwillingness to believe the pack can find its ass with its own hands. By telling everyone to focus on what they're best at anyway, Danny is exploiting those weaknesses beautifully. The coven won't have the first idea how to defend against the mind-boggling array of attacks the pack's going to hit them with.

The hands of the woman farthest from them flicker yellow, and Stiles is lost to the battle rage.

It's a lot of flashes of awareness and half-awareness after that. Growls and yips as Scott and Kira leap into the fray. Dad taking one of the dumbfounded witches out of the fight before she can get in when the handcuffs he clamps around her wrists turn out to be the miraculous magic-blocking ones Lydia designed after the mess in Anaheim two years ago.

Isaac shouting that they have Derek.

Kira's mischievous feints.

The way Scott barely seems to be digging into his alpha powers to keep the coven on the defensive.

This pack has suffered too much, but by god what incredible steel it's tempered them into.

Thing is, the coven doesn't seem to excel at battle-magic. Stiles doesn't doubt they have their niche, but he's betting that niche is complicated, long-term magical working that takes months to come to fruition. Maybe that's why the pack couldn't find the de-aging spell. They'd focused on spells that could be cast on the fly, but more likely the coven planned it in advance: rile up Stiles; wait for Derek to leap to the rescue; throw the spell and make it look like a misfire. So they're long-range planners, which, hey, good for them, and better for the guys who've perfected desperate, on-the-fly, heat-of-battle decision-making.

Namely, the Hale-McCall pack.

Stiles takes a quick assessment. A woman huddles under a tree, sobbing into her arms. Lydia stands over her. She's probably just foretold the exact time and manner of the woman's death.

Isaac's under attack from two witches. The one who chased him out of the cabin is about to go down, but the other is nimble for someone so muscle-bound, and he's slowing Isaac down.

Danny races past on his way to...somewhere. Stiles reaches out and grabs his wrist. "Trust me?" he asks.

It says a lot—although a lot of what, Stiles isn't sure—that Danny takes the time, mid-battle, to roll his eyes. "Of course."

So Stiles spins him around and pulls them into the raunchiest kiss of his life. It's not very good; there's nothing behind it but raw carnality. This isn't lust; it's a show. Danny, brilliant Danny, catches on instantly. He crams his free hand down the back of Stiles' pants while Stiles twists their joined arms until Danny's is pinned behind his back. There's a lot of grinding and porn star moans and visible tongues.

A wolf whistle breaks them apart, and they turn in time to see the slack-jawed look on the witch's face, the equal pulls of revulsion and desire, before Isaac knocks him out and turns back to his other opponent.

That's four down on the witches' side. Jordan's out with something broken in his leg; Isaac's favoring his right side in a way that says not-yet-healed broken rib to Stiles.

Scott and Kira circle Brünnhilde, wearing her down with coordinated attacks—exactly what Danny said not to do, but this _is_ what they excel at, with an awareness of each other in battle that's breathtaking to watch. They'll have her sorted in no time. Which leaves—

Stiles sprints toward the woods, cursing himself a fool twice over. The coven's wildcard, the one who cast the damned spell in the first place—

Hela dashes ahead of him, sprinting toward Melissa and Derek, cackling like a B-movie sorceress. She's fast, but he's faster, and his legs are at least six inches longer than hers. He sees Melissa as they burst past the tree line; she's set Derek on the ground behind her and is crouched in a defensive stance, ready to protect him however she can. Stiles' heart swells even as he knows it won't be enough. He draws in magic from the trees, from the ground, from something residual and raw in that kiss, and prepares a doozy of a spell that'll knock this supremacist whackdoodle flat on her ass.

Hela darts a glance at him, and her eyes widen. _Hah, bitch_ , he crows inwardly. _Didn't think I was that close, did you?_ She shouts in Old Norse and raises her hands.

Stiles gauges the distance between himself and Hela, between himself and Derek. He only has one shot at this.

In less than the space of a blink, he burns off the spell he was holding and calls up another. It crackles heavily in his fingertips, feels _right_ in a way the other hadn't. He flings himself forward and watches Hela's sneer falter as she realizes where he's headed. Her spell's cast; she'll not have time for another before Stiles reaches Melissa and Derek.

" _Ne nemo meum liberum malefecerit_!" Stiles yells, flinging the magic outward. A shimmering, purplish, silverish bubble burst from his fingers and surrounds the three of them.

"Neat," Derek whispers, and Stiles has to agree. He's cast some variation on this spell a dozen times, and it's never been visible before. Never this strong. Outside the bubble, Hela snarls and paces, and Stiles knows, _knows_ she won't be able to break it. Whatever magical or physical weapon she can throw at them, this barrier will hold, though she batter against it for a year.

Hela lets out a nearly feral scream of rage. In the clearing, Brünnhilde's head snaps up. Kira gets a nasty swipe across Brünnhilde's thigh, but the woman doesn't seem to notice. She raises her hand, says something Stiles can't hear, and slams her hand down. Scott and Kira fall to the ground, dazed but seemingly unharmed.

The witches are...gone. Vanished, even the unconscious ones, as though they'd never been there.

Stiles sags, barely keeping his feet. Vaguely, he's aware of Danny and Scott pressing against the shield, urging him to let them in, but he can't move, can barely think, is having trouble catching his breath.

"Stiles?" There's a tiny hand pushing at his leg. "Stiles."

He hauls up the energy to turn his head a fraction of an inch to the left. "Yeah, buddy?"

"I have to go potty."

Stiles is laughing so hard he's sobbing (or maybe that's hysteria) as he lowers the barrier and Derek charges out of it. He vaguely notes that Derek's pink pajamas have been replaced by jeans and a black t-shirt, and somehow _this_ feels like the worst indignity they coven committed against him. Why can't everyone leave Derek _alone_? 

Danny and Scott rush to Stiles' side, helping him to his feet. "Stiles," Danny says, hands cupping Stiles' cheek, rubbing through his hair, squeezing his shoulder—grounding touches, bringing him back from the detached and dangerous headspace that spellwork often puts him in.

Scott rubs Stiles' back. "Stiles, man, you okay?"

Stiles sags in Danny's arms. He _should_ be okay. They got Derek back, and the coven sustained heavy damage while the pack made it out relatively unscathed. But the witches escaped without giving away anything about themselves or what the Rayburn pack is up to. Any minute now (if they haven't already), the witches will tell the pack that they don't have Derek anymore. The Rayburns will surely have a Plan B. And Plan B won't be another cutesy de-aging spell. It'll be the alpha's claws in Derek's throat. Something simmers, hot and fierce, under Stiles' skin, and violent magic sparks in his fingertips. They've won the battle, but the war seems hopeless.

Until Kira crosses the tree line and says, "The sheriff wants to know what we're doing with the witch in the car."

*

The witch in the car, prevented from escaping by Lydia's magic-binding handcuffs, is named Christie Lewis. She's in her late 20s, and, yeah, she's tall and blond, but they must've used a glamor during the fight, because she's far from the towering Valkyrie she'd seemed then. She's just an unremarkable blond chick now. She insists that she's not a neo-fascist or even that into the coven's particular flavor of magic, but that it was her only option in their sparsely populated town. She sings like a nightingale when she realizes her covenmates have abandoned her.

For decades, she explains, the coven and the Rayburn pack co-existed under a flag of mutual noninterference. There were no ties between them but no overt hostilities, either. But then, within the past 18 months, the coven had elevated a new High Priestess, and the pack had gotten a new alpha. She heavily implies it wasn't a peaceful handover—in either case.

Only after both groups had new leaders, by which point she'd been in the coven for five years, did Christie realize that her worldview might not...mesh with her covenmates'.

"They aren't actually racists," she says, sniffling into the Kleenex Jordan gives her. "Like, they don't have anything against other races or magical systems or think they're...lesser, or anything. They just think that groups shouldn't be mixed." Which sounds plenty racist to Stiles, but what does he know? Christie shakes her head. "The old High Priestess didn't care what other groups did, long as they left us alone. Jem, though, she hates eclectic covens so much she wants to destroy them. Like, what're they doing to her?"

Jem—or rather, Brünnhilde, as she's increasingly insisted on being called, even in mundane settings—started focusing heavily on "unity of form," which put her on the radar of Charlie Rayburn, shiny new alpha. Rayburn is a real piece of work, according to Christie, with a serious hate-on for bitten werewolves and packs with nonwerewolf members.

"I can guess how he feels about us, then," Danny says mildly. He almost looks amused.

Christie nods emphatically. "He used to come to the covenhouse and rant about the things he thought were wrong with the world. Your pack came up a lot. How tragic it was that such a pure bloodline as the Hales had been tainted and weakened. The good he could do if your territory was in his hands."

The pack exchanges a lot of significant looks. "So what was the plan?" Kira asks. She leans forward, eyes big, like Christie's best gal-pal asking about her newest pair of shoes.

"Jem agreed to put the de-aging spell on Derek so Charlie could challenge Alpha McCall. The Rayburns would relocate to Hale-McCall territory, and the coven would get the current Rayburn territory. I had _no_ idea kidnapping was part of the plan!"

Stiles can't bring himself to ask what Alpha Rayburn intended for the non-Hale members of the pack. The options are exile or death, and given Rayburn's opinion on bitten werewolves and nonweres, exile seems unlikely. But he can't keep his mouth shut entirely. "Dude, in the past three years we've had a kanima, an alpha pack, possession, bad guys who refuse to stay dead—and that's the Nemeton going easy on us because we have Hales in our pack. Your boy Rayburn would _not_ like it here."

"Hale _s_?" Christie asks. "Plural? Derek isn't the only one?"

"Oh my _god_!" Stiles throws his hands in the air and stalks a few steps away and back. "We were almost bested by, like, the supernatural Keystone Kops. I'm ashamed of us."

"Can we have her back?" Dad asks. "The Shasta County guys have been patient, but they'd like to make an arrest."

"Yeah," Scott says, crossing his arms. "We're done here." Jordan leads Christie away none too gently.

"Wait," Stiles calls, and Christie pauses. "What's the lesson?" He doesn't hold out much hope that she'll tell him, but he has to try.

Christie narrows her eyes. "What lesson?"

"The undo for the spell," Stiles says. "You know: somebody learns a lesson; the spell reverses."

"Huh." Christie looks at him, perplexed, and then shakes her head. "No, no lesson. That spell's irreversible. Hela made sure of it."

Stiles' breath comes in terrible, squeezing gusts. _No lesson_ echoes in his head. _Irreversible_. His chest constricts. It's not a panic attack, but it could easily become one.

"Then what was the point in de-aging him?" Scott asks, sounding very far away.

"Oh, because once Charlie was alpha of this territory, he was going to adopt Derek. 'Raise him up right,' he said." Jordan jerks her away to the waiting Shasta County squad car.

And there it is. There's the panic attack. Stiles' heart races; the world jerks around him; he holds very still, because if he moves, he _will_ die. Derek—their Derek—who's already suffered so much more than he should ever have had to—will _not_ endure a childhood at the hands of an incompetent bigot. Not while Stiles draws breath.

Just as soon as Stiles can draw breath.

"Stiles," Derek whines, leaning out of Melissa's hold, reaching desperately for him. Stiles takes him numbly, and he tucks his face into the crook of Stiles' neck. Stiles counts Derek's breaths, makes sure he's okay, and slowly realizes he's matching his breathing to Derek's. His chest unclenches. The world stabilizes.

Derek's face is still in his neck, scenting him more thoroughly than he's ever done, at any age. Stiles blinks. "Uh...?" he asks helplessly.

"Honestly, Stiles, what did you expect?" Lydia huffs, running her fingers over a squirming Derek, making sure the coven hasn't put any magical booby traps on him. "You did just declare yourself his parent."

"I—y—I did not!"

Lydia cast a phenomenally unimpressed glance Stiles' way. "Not ten minutes ago, Stiles. I heard it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he demands.

"Argh!" Lydia actually stomps her foot. "The spell. You cast. To protect Derek. From the crazy woman. Oh my god, please tell me you haven't been turned stupid or something. Tell me that wasn't Phase 2 of their plan." Stiles can't do anything but continue to stare at her, mouth agape, and she gives a growl that should make the werewolves proud. "' _Ne nemo meum liberum malefecerit_ ,' Stiles. 'None shall harm my child.' I heard you say it."

Stiles runs the words through his mind and flinches, eyes wide "What? No. _'Ne nemo hunc liberum malefecerit_ ,'" he says. " _This_ child. None shall harm _this_ child."

"Hmm." Lydia tilts her head, considering. "Yes, that would make more sense, but it's not what you said."

Stiles strains his memory, but he can't remember anymore whether he said "this child" or "my child." So, it's possible he's magically appointed himself the father of a werewolf six years his senior.

 _Awesome_.

*

The last time Stiles was this exhausted, he was recovering from being possessed. He stares, unseeing, at the flight booking website open on his laptop screen and half-listens to Danny giving Derek a bath. He's supposed to be figuring out the fastest way to get Cora home; they'll pass the spell's 72-hour mark tomorrow afternoon, and if Kira and Isaac's search for Malia comes up empty, they'll need Cora in Beacon Hills as quickly as possible to help defend against the Rayburn pack's challenge.

But he can't focus on anything he's seeing. In his mind, he's making alternate arrangements. Plan D and Plan Q and Plan Omega, anything that doesn't end with the pack dead and Derek Charlie Rayburn's legal son.

The door creaks as Danny bumps it open with one hip, Derek, now wearing a shockingly fuchsia dress, balanced on the other. The sheep pajamas had disappeared with the coven and their possessions, and it's one more thing Stiles will make them suffer for if he sees them again. Stiles' heart seizes. He's out of his chair and across the room in an instant, wrapping an arm around Danny, resting a hand on Derek's back. "Let's run," he whispers.

Danny draws back to stare at him. "Stiles?"

"The three of us," he says, words tumbling out faster as he warms to the idea. "If the deadline passes and he's still like this, we'll get him out of the territory, hide someplace the Rayburns can't find him."

"Stiles!" Danny's hand squeezes hard against Stiles' hip. "No, come on. We can't do that to the pack. To Scott."

"They'll be fine," Stiles insists.

"They need us. And we need them." His hand moves from Stiles' hip to rub soothingly along his spine. "You'll see, okay? We'll reverse the spell, and we'll sort out the Rayburns. Things'll be okay."

"The spell can't be reversed, Danny. You heard her."

Danny smiles, and Stiles will never get over how comforting a dimple can be. "Since when has that stopped us?"

"I want this," Stiles blurts, because _of course_ he does. He plans sweeping romantic gestures and then, when the moment comes, everything goes wrong. He thrusts a giant television at Lydia Martin. He accidentally announces to his fifth period Spanish class that he and Danny are going to prom even though he hasn't asked Danny yet. He yells "I love you" during a fight. Danny looks mostly confused and marginally hopeful. Stiles breathes deep and tries again. "I want a family with you." he says. "Not _this_ family. This one—" He tickles Derek's stomach. Derek giggles and shifts away, but he's smiling. "—needs to grow up and go home and relearn scowly eyebrows. But...a family. The house, the kids, the big fluffy dog. Can we do that, Danny? Please?"

Danny's dark eyes search for any sign of uncertainty, and Stiles tries his damnedest to make sure there's none to see. "Are you sure?" Danny asks. "I'm not sure I could handle you taking it back."

Stiles cups Danny's cheek and nods. "I'm going to freak out thousand times, and you're going to go crazy because I'm not going to be ready as soon as you want me to be. But I'm sure, Danny. I'm committing to this right now. Whatever you want, I'm saying yes."

And that smile—that smile of Danny's warms corners of Stiles' heart he didn't know were frozen. Danny presses his forehead against Stiles' and smiles so softly Stiles could break from it. "Thank you," Danny whispers, and when he leans back, his smile is more solid. "You're going to be a great dad." Stiles one thousand percent does not believe this, but it'll be okay, because Danny was made for parenthood, and with an entire pack to back them up, they'll survive somehow.

When it's bedtime, they don't bother with the toddler bed. In absence of pajamas, they strip Derek to his underwear, tuck him between them in Stiles' bed, and go on with plotting. How to defeat the Rayburn pack; how to get Cora home; how to find Malia. When it's time to sleep, they wrap themselves around the sleeping child, their fingers tangling over his small body. Stiles smiles at Danny, uncertain but willing, and falls asleep to the sound of two steady breaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I made Isaac Jewish here. Why the heck not?
> 
> Heckuva lot of thanks to [Uberniftacular](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Uberniftacular), who served as go-between for this chapter's Latin translation needs.


	4. Day 4: In Loco Patris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, many things are resolved, while others are not. Things change, but life goes on, and Our Heroes step forward to face it—as they usually do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter owes a special debt of gratitude to [ the_wordbutler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler), who, when I whinged about a corner I'd written myself into, said exactly the right words to get me back on track. Thank you.
> 
> In keeping with my unexpected _Lewis_ theme, the title of this chapter is also the title of [a lovely Lewis/Hathaway WIP](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1921155) by [cactusonastair](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cactusonastair). Check it out, if that's Your Sort of Thing.

Danny is falling.

For a split second he thinks he's having one of those dreams where his body has the sensation of falling and jerks itself awake. His ass puts paid to this theory when it connects with the floor. He groans and opens his eyes, staring up at familiar constellations of glow-in-the-dark stars. "What the fuck?"

There's a pause and then, "Shit! Danny!"

Danny hears scrambling on the bed and two heads peer over the edge. Stiles is wide-eyed and worried, hair a tousled mess, clearly trying to determine if Danny is okay so he can start laughing. Beside him hovers six-plus feet of smooth skin, artful stubble, and cranky eyebrows.

"Morning, Derek," Danny says, sitting up.

"Oh! Hey, Derek's back! Hey, Derek! Wow, are you ever naked." Stiles' gaze flips to Danny. "You okay?"

"I'm good." Danny looks at Derek. "You?"

"I...I have—" Derek's gaze falls on Stiles, and the most complicated expression Danny has ever seen twists his features. "I have to go," he says gruffly, leaping over a gobsmacked Stiles and off the bed.

"Derek!" Stiles says.

"Derek, hang on," Danny says.

Derek gives them one panicked look over his shoulder, picks up his clothes—his own clothes, the ones he was wearing in the woods—from the top of Stiles' dresser, and charges into the hall in all his naked glory. Danny leans over and high-fives Stiles, because _naked Derek Hale_.

Stiles sighs and flops back down. "Man, they grow up so fast."

Danny snorts. "Good thing your dad's not home," he says. He folds his arms on top of the mattress and rests his chin on them. "You did that, you know."

"What—I—what?!?" Stiles splutters, flopping around on the bed. It must be love that makes that endearing to Danny.

"The spell you cast yesterday, and what you said to me last night..." He shrugs, even as his heart hammers, suspecting Stiles will be less likely to freak out about all of that if Danny acts like it isn't the monumental, life-changing thing it actually is. "Lesson learned. Curse broken."

"But that's—" Stiles frowns, shakes his head. "There wasn't any lesson. Christie said so."

Danny reaches out a hand and strokes Stiles' thigh, slipping his fingertips under the hem of the shark-patterned boxers he'd worn to bed. For Danny's money, little in life is better than touching Stiles, getting his hands on that warm skin and feeling the power and potential, human and magic, that thrums beneath. "Did you believe her when she said that?" he asks.

"No," Stiles says emphatically. He waves his hands around and, on his back, it makes him look more Muppet-like than usual. "Spells have failsafes. Water is wet; werewolves heal; spells have failsafes. It's how the world works."

"This one didn't. But you gave it one, because you believed it should have one. Power of the spark." He punctuates this with a quick drag of his fingernails up Stiles' thigh, just enough to make Stiles hiss.

"Hmm." Stiles drapes an arm across his eyes. "We should go after him, shouldn't we? Make sure he's okay."

"We could," Danny says, nodding. He cocks his head, listening. For the first time in days, the house is empty. The low hum of the air conditioning and the quiet rasp of Stiles' breath are the only sounds. He pushes his hand higher, running his finger along the groove where Stiles' leg meets his pelvis. "Or..." He pauses until Stiles lowers his arm and looks over. "We could take advantage of the fact that we're really alone for the first time in three days."

Stiles' laugh is low, dark, and breathless as he arches into Danny's touch, seeking more. "You're devious."

Danny pinches Stiles' leg as he climbs to his feet. "You wouldn't have me any other way."

"Oh, trust me, Danny-boy," Stiles says, voice heavy with promise, "I'd have you _every_ way."

By the time Danny's caught the breath Stiles stole with the naked _want_ in that sentence, Stiles' shirt is on the floor, his boxers are around his ankles, and...his phone's in his hand? "That threeway with Lydia is _neeever_ happening," Danny says. "For so many reasons."

"Hah hah." Stiles flips him off. "I'm texting the pack to say Derek's been...re-aged? Age progressed? One less thing to panic about. And I thought, maybe, Parrish might like to know six-foot-gloom of angst-filled werewolf is headed his way."

Danny strips out of his clothes as Stiles kicks his boxers away haphazardly; then Danny stands beside the bed and waits for Stiles to call the tune. He looks at Danny with hooded eyes, and a flush works its way down his chest. He gives Danny a smile that's equal parts sweet and debauched and flips onto his stomach, sliding his arms under his pillow.

Danny snorts. "We doing this the lazy way?"

Stiles gives a pleased hum and shimmies his hips. "The laziest," he confirms.

Danny presses the heel of his hand against the base of his cock to hold back his sudden _throb_ of desire. It's strange, how the body of his perfectly human boyfriend, the smooth, mole-dotted plane of his back, the long, muscled lines of his legs, the taut curve of his ass, brings out something primal in Danny, something animalistic, that he never felt with his boyfriend the actual werewolf. It strikes him like this sometimes, the longing to bite and mark, to _claim_.

Now's not the time for it. For a guy who's almost literally never still, Stiles had an astonishing capacity for sloth. When he says "the laziest," he means it. Danny kneels on the bed and strokes his hands over Stiles' glorious warm skin, keeping the pressure just lighter than what Stiles prefers. The touch quickly reduces Stiles to a shifting, cursing mess, begging Danny to "fucking put something in my ass already."

Danny snorts. "Sweet-talker," he murmurs. He massages Stiles' hole with one thumb while his other hand snags lube and a condom from the nightstand, tearing the condom wrapper open now, because god knows he won't have the coordination for it later.

He slicks his fingers and lies down, covering Stiles like a blanket, and reaches down between them to slide one finger inside.

Danny has practically no leverage here, and Stiles is completely pinned down. The slow-building anticipation is _killer._ By the time he's worked Stiles open with his fingers and has slid his cock inside him, Stiles is making desperate, half-swallowed moans. Danny sets up a slow, rolling rhythm with his hips, sweet agony for them both. He presses his forehead between Stiles' shoulder blades, slips his hands under the pillow to find Stiles' and twine their fingers together. Stiles writhes and begs, and at some point his moans turn into sobs, and Danny's pretty sure it's not just about his delayed orgasm, about the fact that nothing's touching his dick but the friction of the sheets. Danny runs his hands up and down Stiles' arms, across his shoulders, ruffles them in his hair. And he talks, more than usual, a steady stream of reassurances, one more way to remind Stiles that Danny isn't going anywhere.

Time expands and contracts around them; Danny isn't sure if it's been five minutes or the whole day when Stiles starts to tense around him, drawing tight, almost there. Danny takes Stiles' hands again, draws his nose down Stiles' neck to the top of his shoulder. "Come on, Stiles," he whispers. "Let go."

Stiles shudders with a keening cry and comes hard, the clench of his ass around Danny's dick punching him with a pleasure that makes his eyes cross. "Danny. _Please_ ," Stiles begs, and his grip on Danny's fingers is so tight. Danny's not sure what he's begging for, but what he gets is Danny's orgasm, pouring out of him with tidal-wave force and a gasp of Stiles' name.

The instant he regains control of his body and breath, Danny rolls them to their sides, still buried in Stiles, one arm trapped beneath Stiles' torso. Stiles doesn't say anything, just presses desperately against him, grips his forearms so tightly his nails leave marks. Danny holds him closer and drops kisses across the tensed line of his shoulders. "Hey," Danny says, "it's okay, Stiles. Come back."

Stiles jerks. "It's stupid," he says. "I know it's stupid."

"Hey, no," Danny says, "it's not stupid. You whammied yourself hard with that spell yesterday. And that's on top of the fear and adrenaline and how much Derek means to you." He hears the indrawn breath and flicks the back of Stiles' hand. "Don't even try it, Stilinski. It's been years since anyone believed you two hate each other. Give yourself time for the magic to fade. And to grieve."

Stiles laughs damply. "It wasn't real. I know it wasn't real. But it hurts."

"It was totally real, and it's totally normal that it hurts. But he's okay. We'll stop by later, so you can see that he's fine." He runs his lips up the shell of Stiles' ear and whispers, "And someday, when it's our kids, we'll have years, not just three days."

Stiles freezes, and Danny's sure he's gone too far. Then Stiles is twisting his shoulders and catching Danny's lips in a kiss that feels like a promise being made and one being demanded in return.

Danny's happy to give it.

*

They go to the mall, of all things, because that's where they'd been headed when they got Scott's frantic text to come to the woods to deal with some witches. Danny's running shoes are falling apart, and now he thinks it'd be nice to replace the shirt Isaac lost to the witches.

Outside the Aunt Annie's (because Stiles needs to be fed every three hours, and in absence of curly fries, a soft pretzel as big as his face will do), Danny notices that Stiles' attention is not exactly with him. The third time he tries, unsuccessfully, to press Stiles' Sprite into his hands, he follows Stiles' gaze to a bench across the way. It's a straight couple in their late 20s, the man attempting with zero success to convince the girl on his lap, who's about 3, to eat a piece of cantaloupe while the woman tries with equally little success to quiet the screams of the baby in her arms. Danny freezes and looks at Stiles, studying his face as inconspicuously as possible.

He's seen this expression many times. The last time it was this pronounced was the night before they left Beacon Hills for their first semester at Berkeley. Interpreting Stiles' expressions is far from an exact science, but Danny takes this one to mean "excited and terrified in equal measure but committed, god damn it."

Danny nudges Stiles' hand with the cup until he takes it, eyes on the couple. "We lucked out," Danny murmurs. "Three days, only one meltdown. Not every kid's as easygoing. It'll be tough as fuck sometimes."

"Yeah," Stiles says distractedly. A guy walks past pushing a smiling toddler in a stroller; Stiles' eyes track them for a minute before cutting to two middle-aged women trailing a trio of sullen adolescents. "Yeah," he says again, before turning his head and flashing a shaky yet determined smile that fills Danny with reckless hope, "but worth it, I think?"

"Yeah," Danny says back. "Totally worth it."

Danny's phone beeps, and he glances down to find a new message from Jordan.

 **Jordan:** D's sulking. Help.

"Ask him about eyebrows," Stiles says.

Danny glares but taps out, _EBI?_

The response comes almost immediately.

 **Jordan:** 7

Danny and Stiles whistle. Stiles' DHEBI (Derek Hale Eyebrow Index) started as a joke, but it gauges Derek's worst moods with surprising accuracy. A rating of 7 puts them in the red zone.

"We should go over," Danny says.

"And say what?" Stiles demands, and Danny hears as much helpless frustration as annoyance in his voice. "Sorry you're not four and a half anymore and it turns out your life sucks? Sorry I maybe accidentally formed a magical father-son bond with you? Sorry we let you run around in cute sundresses for three days? Not actually sorry about that one, by the way."

"I don't know," Danny says, fighting the irritation he always feels when Stiles gets snarky and defensive. "But we can't abandon him. Magic or no, we were his parents during this mess. We owe it to him to help him through whatever residual effects he's suffering."

"Okay, ugh, fine. Jeez. Yes, okay, we'll make nice with the broody werewolf. God, I miss the old days. When Derek and I hated each other and his angst wasn't, you know, on me."

Danny raises an eyebrow. "Was that before or after you were seconds away from cutting off his arm to save his life?"

"Argh! I so regret telling you that story. I knew you'd take it out of context!" Before Danny can argue that he's got it perfectly in context, that Stiles just refuses to acknowledge what it says about the development of his friendship with Derek, Stiles has grabbed his phone.

 **TO Jordan:** running an errand. b there when were done

 **Jordan:** THANK YOU

Stiles stares at the screen. "Huh. Guess he's pretty desperate." Danny doesn't bother saying duh.

"What errand are we running?" Danny asks.

"Fuck if I know, dude." Stiles shrugs and chucks his empty cup into a trash can. "I was buying time while we figure out what the hell we're going to do."

They walk slowly toward the end of the mall where the Jeep is parked ("Hell yes we're taking the Jeep," Stiles had said, "no more kid." "I told you you didn't care about keeping me safe," Danny'd said, laughing.) Danny watches Stiles' keen gaze track every child who passes and tries to beat down the traitorous fluttering in his chest.

They're passing the Old Navy when Danny glances up and freezes, hand going to Stiles' chest to stop him. "Stiles—" He doesn't have to say anything else, because Stiles is already moving, dashing into the store with what can only be described (though he'll surely deny it later) as an excited squeal.

It takes a lot of time in the fitting room, a lot of stifled giggles and unnecessary handsiness, and even then they're not sure they've gotten the fit right. But they make their purchase and practically sprint out of the mall and to the Jeep. Breathless with laughter and exertion, Stiles collapses against the side of the Jeep, grabs Danny's hips, and pulls Danny flush against him, capturing his lips in a brilliant, uncoordinated kiss. "We're gonna be the best dads ever!" he crows.

"Nuh-uh." Danny rests his palms on Stiles' chest. "We'll be the most embarrassing dads ever."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Well, _duh_. That's what I meant by 'best.' Honestly!" They're still laughing as Stiles pulls out of the lot.

Stiles finds a halfway decent spot outside Jordan's building and kills the engine but makes no move to take the keys from the ignition or leave the Jeep. "Ten bucks says Jordan's stress-drying."

"Please," Danny scoffs as he opens his door, "fifteen says he's moved on to knitting." Stiles hisses through his teeth as he follows Danny to the building.

And it's such a stupid, jokey thing, but it makes Danny sharply aware, in a way he usually isn't, of how tightly Derek and Jordan have wound their lives together. Derek taught Jordan to knit—ask them about their first date and they'll tell you about the night Derek spent in the sheriff's station's supernatural creatures cell to hide from the Erinyes that were hunting him. Jordan offered to keep him company for a while; Derek asked for yarn and knitting needles to help keep calm. By the time the sun rose and the danger passed, Jordan had the world's most lopsided potholder and the promise of a second date. And when Danny expressed surprise that Derek agreed to move in with Jordan without a second's hesitation, Derek shrugged and said, straight-faced, "Nana St. Andrew said never turn down a partner who owns their own canner and dehydrator." They still don't talk much about Derek's family, but Danny believes he was dead serious.

Jordan opens the door holding a skein of sky-blue yarn attached to what looks like the beginnings of a hat. He clenches a knitting needle between his teeth, and Danny hears the dehydrator humming behind him. The pack's going to be eating a lot of jerky this fall. "Thag fub yi heah," Jordan says with all sincerity.

Stiles grins and pushes past him. "Where is he?"

Jordan points the yarn at the bedroom. "We're on it," Stiles assures him. Danny squeezes Jordan's shoulder as he passes, following Stiles across the small living area. Jordan's place is the epitome of "bachelor pad," but he's moving in with Derek when his lease is up in September (the only fully renovated room in the Hale house is the master suite. The bed is a California king with a canopy. Because Derek Hale has his priorities straight), so they endure the cramped and uninteresting quarters for now.

"Yo, yo, yo," Stiles calls as he bangs on the bedroom door. "Little wolf, little wolf, let me in!" To Danny's ear, his cheer sounds forced.

The door flies open, but Derek looks far from happy to see them. "Fuck off, Stiles," he growls. He turns his back on them and stalks across the room, where he slumps on the radiator and stares moodily out the window. He's reverted to all black: a black t-shirt that looks two sizes too small and a pair of stiff, tight black jeans. Danny's surprised he's not wearing his leather jacket, as well.

"Noooo!" Stiles cries, crossing to Derek. "You're supposed to say, 'Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin." And then the idiot scritches Derek's chin. Danny isn't sure what's more confounding: the complete lack of self-preservation that leads Stiles to do stupid shit like that or the unique and often incomprehensible bond between Derek and Stiles that leaves his hand attached. Danny would never try a stunt like that. Hell, Jordan probably wouldn't try it. But Stiles reminds Derek of Laura, and that gets him a lot of leeway no one else has.

Derek swats Stiles' hand away with more irritation than real anger. "Cut it out, Stiles," he says, and he sounds weary.

Danny hops onto the radiator, perpendicular to Derek, his back against the window and his feet on the floor. He turns his head toward Derek. "How do you feel?" he asks quietly.

"Weird," Derek admits. He looks briefly at Danny and then away. Stiles sits on the corner of the bed, facing Danny and at the edge of Derek's peripheral vision. Derek's gaze flicks to him and then back out the window. It's a protective gesture that keeps him from being vulnerable to their gazes, but Danny knows the level of trust it shows that Derek's willing to take his eyes off them at all. "I remember everything that happened, and the memories are sharper than the ones I have from when I was really that age, but most of it doesn't make sense." He snaps his mouth shut and pinks up in the cheeks. But Danny sees the minute pursing and relaxing of his lips, which usually means he has something else to say and is fighting hard against saying it.

"Wow, dude," Stiles says softly. "That's gotta suck."

Derek shrugs. "Just weird, mostly." He rubs his hands on his pant legs and keeps his gaze on the window as he adds quietly, "I was never scared, though. Even when the—even when they took me, I wasn't scared. I knew you were coming for me."

Danny smiles and touches Derek's knee. "You know how important you are to this pack. Come on."

"No," Derek says, low and fierce, gaze snapping onto Danny. "Not the pack. You." He swallows and looks at Stiles, then away again. "The two of you."

Danny and Stiles blink at each other around Derek. The enormity of that confession steals Danny's breath for a second. Then he smiles gently and holds Derek's gaze. "Kid you was pretty smart," he says. Derek half-smiles back.

"Yeah, dude," Stiles adds, "no way we would've left you with those assholes."

Derek sighs and rubs his face with his hand. "Jordan caught me up. Scott and I are going tomorrow to take care of the Rayburn pack."

"Good," Stiles says emphatically. "That shit was bullshit, man. It can't stand."

Danny purses his lips. "Lydia and Kira are looking into old records for evidence of magical tampering in the original contract. Your great-grandmother would never have agreed to it unless she was under a compulsion. If we find it, the contract's void." He pauses, looking at Stiles, who nods encouragingly and offers, like the asshole he is, no help whatsoever. "Also, Scott's got Isaac looking for Malia." Derek shifts and scowls, but Danny shakes his head. "Look, I know," he says, "but we need to know where she is. If things go to shit again—"

"Which, come on, dude, you know they will." Derek and Danny glare at Stiles; he shrugs unapologetically.

"We need to know where to find a blood Hale who's closer than the equator," Danny finishes.

Derek clenches his jaw and exhales sharply, but they're not backing down on this one. Derek can suck it up and deal with whatever fight he and Malia had before she skipped town. "Fine," he grits out.

Danny takes a deep breath and soft-focuses his eyes around Derek's cheek. "So, you probably don't want to talk about the dresses—"

"I don't," Derek growls.

"But you should!"

"Stiles, don't push him," Danny says sharply.

"Because it'd be _really good_ for you!" Stiles waves his hands and bounces on the bed.

"Stiles—" Derek's starting to look really anxious.

"And I don't understand why you wouldn't want to—"

"Because I just _don't_ , Dad, Jesus!"

 _Deafening_ is not a strong enough word to describe the depth of the silence. Because that wasn't "Dad" tossed out with sarcastic affection like Stiles does when Scott goes too sensitive New Age alpha on them. That was "Dad" spit with genuine aggravation, like Danny does when he's fighting with his own father.

Stiles and Danny exchange helpless stares. What the hell can they say to that? What can they _begin_ to do? Stiles inches forward. "Okay, wow. Derek. We…" He stalls out.

"It's—" Derek stares down at his hands. "S'why I ran this morning." He doesn't say anything more, but Danny can't imagine what it must be like to go to bed a child, feeling protected and loved, and wake up an adult, naked in a bed with two guys you think of as your fathers. Who are now younger than you.

Stiles tries again. "Look, Derek, this one's totally on me, and I can't believe I'm admitting that, but you deserve better than my usual bullshit evasions. I messed up the spell, so if you're gonna be upset with anyone—"

"I'm not."

"That someone should be me."

"Stiles!" Derek sounds mortified and frustrated, but a hint of his usual dealing-with-Stiles amusement is bleeding through. "I'm...I'm not upset." Unspoken, but easily extrapolated, is that Derek finds his lack of worry to be...worrisome. "I—Mom was the alpha, but Dad was just...Dad." Danny gets that, a little. It's nothing like his family, but he sees it when the Stilinskis and McCalls get together. Part of the sheriff can never shut off, never stop being an officer of the law. Melissa more easily distances herself as both worried mom and vaguely disapproving medical professional to let Scott and Stiles be irrepressible doofuses. Derek looks at Danny and seems to realize he's been understood. He smiles gratefully at Danny and looks back at Stiles. "I've missed that."

Danny swallows. Stiles' eyes look suspiciously bright as he asks, "Really? You're not mad?"

Derek shakes his head. "I'm…" He licks his lips. "I'm grateful. I'm…glad it's you." They stare at each other, and the silence between them grows heavy with unspoken words that have to do with the early days of their acquaintance, before Danny was involved, when it was Stiles, Scott, and Derek against the world and none of them trusted each other.

"Okay, look," Danny says quietly, "I know it's not the same, and I know it's…weird, but…if you—if you need that from us—"

"Yes!" Stiles says enthusiastically, on firmer ground now that he sees a plan of attack. "Please, dude, let us be the embarrassing dads who give you bad advice about boys and make tragically out-of-date pop culture references." He blushes scarlet and mutters, "It'll be good practice."

At moments like this, Danny becomes painfully aware of Derek's similarities to Jackson. Like that look on Derek's face, the sassy pursed lips and raised eyebrow that say, "Oh, we are _so_ talking about this later, bitch." Danny treats it the way he treats it from Jackson—by defiantly refusing to break eye-contact, despite the blush suffusing his cheeks.

Stiles clears his throat. "So, uh, the dresses?" he asks. "I mean, not that—you don't have to say anything if you don't want, but they were—" He flaps his hands and looks at Danny, who shrugs. "You were so _cute_!" Stiles pulls his phone from his pocket and flips to the camera roll, opening one of the pictures from the tea party. "I mean, look at you, Derek. Look how _happy_ you look."

Derek takes the phone and looks at the picture with wonder, tracing his finger over the face of his younger self. It hits Danny hard, how long it must've been since Derek's seen a childhood picture of himself. He reaches over and squeezes Derek's wrist; Derek looks at him gratefully and hands the phone back to Stiles.

"It wasn't—" Derek clenches his fists against his legs, shakes his head and tries again. "I'm not trans," he says. "And it wasn't—at that age, I didn't realize they were 'girl clothes.' I just liked them more than pants. They felt better. Moved better." He shrugs. "When I got older, I realized I wasn't 'supposed to' wear them, but Dad always said, 'The Internet wasn't supposed to be for cat pictures, either,' which was dumb, but we knew what he meant. Nobody made a fuss."

"Actually," Stiles says (predictably), "the guys at DARPA who developed the Internet were—"

"Stiles," Danny says.

"Yes, right." Stiles nods. "Not the point. Sorry."

"So what happened?" Danny prods Derek's foot with his own. He has a guess, but he needs Derek to confirm it.

"Peter," Derek says, defeated, and Stiles bristles. Danny rubs a soothing hand down Stiles' spine, and he relaxes a little. "When I turned 13, he—" Derek tilts his head, remembering, then chuckles in self-deprecating surprise. "He never explicitly mentioned the dresses. I just realized that. But he gave me a suit for my birthday and said I was an adult, by werewolf custom, and that adults shouldn't do anything that made the pack weak."

A flame of rage flares in Danny. It harmed _nothing_ if Derek wore dresses. It didn't make him less of a fighter, a defender, a _person_. And Peter had taken it away for...what? Some outdated social norm? A dream of normalcy that was downright laughable from a born werewolf? But Peter's dead for real this time. Being angry at him won't do any good. So he leans forward, wraps his hands around Derek's fists, and says, "You know none of us care, right? I mean, if we've put up with Stiles' wardrobe all these years, a couple dresses aren't going to bother us."

"Hey!" Stiles squawks.

"It's not normal," Derek says, and when Danny and Stiles both open their mouths to argue, adds, "Every werewolf tradition I know—"

"Nothing's traditional about this pack," Stiles says. "Nothing's normal. The Rayburns and the coven can bitch all they want, but it's the best thing about us. If you want to kick ass and protect this territory in a dress, do it. It can only make us stronger."

"What?" Derek rears back, shoulders banging against the windowpane. "How?"

"Because this is part of you," Danny says. "Something that makes you comfortable in your skin. Being without it all these years has been like trying to fight in handcuffs."

"Not that we're judging what you and Jordan do in the bedroom."

Danny pokes Stiles in the side where he's ticklish, for the joy of watching him jolt. "Reached your tact limit, didn't we?"

Stiles gives a barking laugh. "Blasted right past it, buddy."

Derek leans against the window and rolls his eyes at them. It releases some tension from the room, but not enough.

"My point," Danny says with a glare at Stiles, "is that we beat that coven yesterday by being a mishmashed mess of wolves and foxes and magic-users and humans. Maybe things were different when your pack was your blood family—though I'm not inclined to believe anything Peter had to say about it—but in this pack, I think a dude in a dress could only be an advantage."

Danny and Stiles grin at Derek, who tentatively smiles back. "You...it's really okay?"

"Derek!" Stiles huffs. "Did you forget that my best friends outside the pack are literally a bunch of drag queens? If you want this for yourself, we want it for you. Everyone in the pack feels the same. Promise."

Derek's glance shifts, lightning-fast, to the bedroom door and then away. Danny lays his hand over Derek's. "Him most of all," he says softly.

Derek shakes his head. "You can't—"

"Only one way to find out," Stiles says, lunging back to the bed to pick up the Old Navy bag.

"Daaad," Derek groans, and they recognize it as half joke, half sincere exasperation.

"Oh, hush," Stiles says, thrusting the bag into Derek's hands. Danny holds his breath while Derek opens it and peers inside. Derek makes a sound—soft, uncertain, and hopeful—and Danny exchanges proud smiles with Stiles.

It's not an exact match. The stripes are wider, the green darker. But it's long, sleeveless, and practically shapeless (apparently not only a thing with kids' dresses), with the same general feel to the fabric. And the look on Derek's face—hopeful and nervous, like he can't believe they're offering what he wants them to be. Danny had thought his heart couldn't ache any more for Derek, that he was inured against the damage his friend had suffered, but apparently this simple act of identity assertion is going to be his undoing. He sees movement from the corner of his eye and looks over to see Stiles turn his gaze to the ceiling and pretend he isn't crying.

"Go on," Danny urges, "try it on."

Derek looks between them once more as though waiting for the gotcha. When he sees only their firm, steady gazes, he jumps off the radiator and shucks his jeans and t-shirt at supernatural speeds. Danny grins at Stiles, who waggles his eyebrows.

There's nothing much to the dress, so Derek gets it on in seconds and steps immediately to the full-length mirror in the closet. The dress wasn't made for Derek's build. There's a tightness across the shoulders, a droop in the chest, and, though they bought the longest one they could find, it falls to an awkward midpoint on his calf. But the way Derek stands in it, shoulders back, spine straight, prismatic eyes blazing defiantly above a jutted chin, erases any flaws. When Derek looks hopefully at them from under lowered lashes, there's no lie in Danny when he says, "You look perfect."

Derek glances at Stiles, who nods like an overenthusiastic bobble-head. "I know the length's wonky," he says. "Kira's mom's a good seamstress. Maybe she can let it down."

Danny lifts his eyebrows. "Really?" He can't picture Mrs. Yukimura at a sewing machine.

Stiles shrugs. "Lady's, like, 900 years old. She's had time to get good at basically everything."

"No, it's..." Derek looks at his reflection again, smiling softly. "It's fine. It's…" He nods once, decisively. "It's perfect."

Stiles tilts his head toward the door. "Come on, dude. Let's show Jordan."

All color drains from Derek's face. "I—" He shakes his head. "No. I can't."

Damn it. One step forward, one step back. "Why not?"

"Because it's not—he didn't sign up for this."

It's hard to know which realization stings more: that Derek's bought into the "straight-acting queer guy" bullshit or that he believes, for even a second, that Jordan expects it from him. "He signed up for _you_ , Derek," Danny insists. "All of you."

"Look," Stiles says, a wheedling note in his voice, "just show him. If he hates it, we'll take it back and never bring it up again."

Derek and Danny know Stiles well enough to know that he is 100 percent sincere in that promise—and also that he will be unbearable in convincing Derek to keep the first part of the deal. Derek closes his eyes and nods. Stiles squeals and bounces off the bed. He beams at Danny and then grabs Derek's hand and hauls him out of the room before he has time to change his mind.

By the time Danny pushes out of the bedroom in the others' wake, the atmosphere's changed radically. An epic pile of what looks like venison jerky is drying on the kitchen counter, and the tiny round of hat Jordan had been working on when they arrived could now serve as a perfectly respectable kippah. Jordan's eyes are on Derek, and his hands fall to his sides, yarn and needles dropping unheeded to the floor. Jordan steps into Derek's space and takes both of Derek's hands. "Hey," he says softly.

"Hi," Derek says, voice wavering. He clears his throat, and Danny sees the strain in his shoulders and how much he's struggling to maintain eye contact. "Is it…okay?"

And bless Jordan's heart for knowing that easy reassurance _wouldn't_ reassure Derek, wouldn't be believable for him. Fingers still interlaced with Derek's, Jordan backs up half a step and gives him a slow, thorough once-over, sharp gaze trailing from the crown of Derek's head to his bare feet. Danny can't see the look on Jordan's face, but Derek's nostrils flare and his pupils dilate, and the air between them thickens with possibility.

Jordan uses his grip on Derek's hands to haul them together, into one of the filthiest kisses Danny's ever witnessed. Derek presses back, releasing Jordan's hands to bury his fingers in Jordan's hair. Jordan groans and grabs Derek's hips, twisting the fabric of the dress in a way that quickly begins to reveal an alarming amount of Derek's legs.

Danny pokes Stiles hard in the ribs. "Stiles," he hisses. "Stiles, let's go."

"Yeah, yeah, babe," he says absently, waving his hand. "In a minute."

"No, _now_." Danny grabs Stiles' hand and drags him toward the door. Derek flips them off over Jordan's shoulder, but he's laughing, too.

Because he's an asshole, Stiles stumbles out of the apartment backward, not looking away until the door literally slams in his face. "Lord, _lord_ ," he carols, fanning his face with his hand.

Danny punches Stiles' arm. "Please promise me you won't do that to our actual kids."

Stiles slumps against the wall. "I dunno, man. Think of, like, running off boyfriends and girlfriends we don't like by sitting in the back of the room and rating their make-outs like Olympic judges."

Danny laughs and leans into Stiles' shoulder. "Glad to know you're still kind of evil."

"You'll never pull me up to your level, Mahealani."

From inside the apartment comes a muted thud and rattling glass. Stiles tilts his head. "Jordan on the counter?"

Danny shakes his head no. "Derek on the counter."

"Our work here is done." Stiles holds up his fist, and Danny indulges him because, yeah. They did good.

Danny pushes away from the wall and heads toward the stairs out of Jordan's building. "Pizza?"

Stiles scoffs and falls in beside him, pulling out his phone to deal Scott into their plans. "Is the sky blue?"

"In this town?" Danny asks, laughing.

*

They're scattered around the Martin living room. They should be planning their strategy for dealing with the Rayburn pack—and they will, as soon as they work up the energy. But they've had a long couple days, so for the moment they're devouring the alarming amounts of pizza necessitated by two werewolves, a kitsune, and a Stiles. "Hey," Kira says, pizza centimeters from her mouth, a flash of guilt crossing her face, "did we tell Derek and Jordan we're here?"

"Uh, yyyyeah," Stiles says, swallowing hastily. "They're having 'Thank fuck neither of us is four' sex. They're good."

Reactions range from amusement on Scott's part to blatant visualization on Lydia's, but everyone gets it. They've all had "Thank fuck my significant other's not ____" sex.

"I don't want this thing with the Rayburns to be something else that ends in bloodshed," Scott says once he's demolished his fifth slice, "but I don't see a lot of other options."

Isaac nods and tosses his napkin into one of the empty boxes. "But what do we know about Rayburn's betas? If the new alpha's crazier than he is, we're screwed."

"Boys," Lydia says, rolling her eyes, "no one has to kill anyone. Technically, we don't even have to go. Although I agree we need to make our point."

"Lydia, if we don't take Charlie Rayburn out of the picture, he'll come after Derek again." Scott keeps his voice even, but Danny hears the tightness in it.

Lydia shrugs. "He can try, but Stiles made Derek basically invincible, so it won't do him much good."

Stiles' eyes narrow. "Invincible?"

Danny sits up fast as pieces fall into place. He hadn't considered the long-term consequences, but now it seems obvious. " _Ne nemo meum liberum malefecerit,"_ he says, cutting a glance at Stiles in time to see his eyes light up as he gets it, too.

"Would that work?" Stiles asks, voice straining with cautious hope.

Danny nods slowly as he continues working it out. "We'll do the spell again here, to tie the magic to the territory. It should hold."

"Hey." Isaac waves a hand at them. "Explain it to the non-magic users."

"If Stiles had done the spell the way he was supposed to," Lydia says with her usual bluntness, "it would've tied Derek's protection to a certain state of being. Since he messed it up, it's now tied to a relationship."

Scott looks at Lydia, then at Isaac, who shrugs. "No, still lost," Scott says, shaking his head.

"Okay, you're not a child anymore, right?" Danny asks.

"Right."

"But you're still your mother's child."

Danny sees the instant Scott gets it, because his eyes widen and he looks at Stiles with skeptical horror. "You want to make Stiles Derek's dad permanently?"

"It's symbolic," Lydia says.

"And it's not a terrible idea!" Stiles snaps, giving Scott a wounded glare.

"It's the worst idea ever." Isaac just manages to get this out before dissolving into hysterical laughter. Kira sniggers, too, but quells under Stiles' gaze, which is when Danny realizes that Stiles is actually upset.

"Hey!" Danny says sharply, glaring at Isaac with a faint blue-green flicker in his eyes until the laughter subsides. "It's a good idea. Better than taking on Charlie Rayburn."

"Look, it's not—" Isaac huffs. "I'm sure Stiles'll be a great dad to his own kids someday. But permanently setting himself up as Derek's dad? You think that won't end in disaster?"

"Yes," Danny snaps.

"Isaac, cut it out," Scott says, quiet but firm. Isaac grumbles but subsides against the couch behind him.

The damage is done. Eyes wide and haunted, Stiles pushes off the couch and flees the room with a strangled half-apology Danny can't make out. Danny goes after him, glaring at Isaac as he passes.

Danny finds Stiles on the wrap-around porch. His shoulders hunch almost to his ears, and his hands squeeze the railing so tightly his knuckles stand out stark white. "Stiles," Danny whispers, struggling against something hot and sharp that claws at his throat.

"He's right, you know."

"He is _not_." Danny steps forward, molds himself along Stiles' back. His hands cover Stiles' and ease his grip on the railing. "Stiles, you've been great with Derek. When he was a kid and now that he's back to his own age."

"I can't be his father, Danny. I mean, that's insane. He's six years older than me and...and seriously messed up. And _I'm_ seriously messed up. And...and two wrongs and all that shit."

"Stiles." Danny presses a kiss to the nape of Stiles' neck. "It's _symbolic_. You don't actually have to parent him. He's an adult, and you know the spell doesn't work that way. It's more..." He looks around, searching the perfectly manicured lawn for inspiration. "It's not about you or Derek, personally. It's about protecting him from the Rayburns and other assholes like them. Protecting us and the territory, too." He wraps his arms around Stiles' waist. "And letting people know we're doing it. The Rayburns started this because they see us as weak, right? A scraggledy shadow of the former Hale glory."

"Scraggledy, huh?" Stiles asks, and Danny hears the tentative curve of a smile in his voice.

"Yeah."

"They're not wrong about that."

"Maybe, maybe not." Danny shrugs; that's not the point he's arguing. "They're wrong about what it means, though."

Stiles leans back, settles his weight against Danny's chest. "What's it mean?" he asks softly.

"It means we kept Derek safe, beat some witches, and reversed an irreversible spell. Because nobody told us we couldn't."

"I'm not sure we should be arguing that our ignorance is our advantage, here."

Danny sighs and rests his lips on the sensitive skin behind Stiles' ear. Not a kiss, just a statement of presence. "Not what I meant," he says, barely more than a whisper, and Stiles shivers against him. "We're sending a message."

"Yeah?" Stiles arches into him. "Which message?"

"We're strong." He lays a kiss on Stiles' neck. "Unafraid." Another kiss. "Making our own rules."

Stiles laughs shakily, head dropping forward. "Okay," he says quietly. "Okay." He straightens and pushes against Danny's hold.

Danny steps back, letting him go, but when Stiles turns around, Danny takes his hand and holds his gaze. "And that starts with the pack," he says. "I don't care what Isaac thinks about what we're doing. But if Scott won't keep him in line, I will." Stiles shivers again, sparked by the power in Danny's voice. It's not an idle threat. "Come on," Danny says, pulling Stiles toward the door. "Let's go explain it again. As many times and in as many ways as it takes for them to get it."

"Ugh," Stiles says dramatically, "that sounds awful." But the corners of his lips are curling in a maybe-smile. It's victory enough for Danny. "Hey, do you really think Derek's _invincible_ now?"

"Let's not test it," Danny says.

Danny's phone chimes with a text alert as he's returning to the living room. Now, the sheriff's been known to say a picture's only worth a thousand words if it's the right picture. Derek knows how to pick the right picture. It's the foot of Jordan's bed, taken from the head. Off to the side, four blurry feet tangle together. The focus of the picture is a green and black striped dress, lying in a heap atop the comforter and looking a little worse for wear. Grinning, Danny nudges Stiles and shows him the screen. Stiles whistles and wrests the phone from Danny's hand before he can protest. When Danny grabs it back, he's in no way surprised that Stiles has replied, _get it kiddo_.

Derek's reply comes seconds later. In classic Derek fashion, it's just three words, and it makes Danny laugh so hard even Lydia looks intrigued. It's perfect, and Danny feels _right_ for the first time in four days.

 **Derek:** shut up dad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we come to the end of our journey. Deepest gratitude to everyone for reading, and especially folks who took the time to leave comments and kudos. I write this stuff for my own amusement, but I post it for yours, and if even a handful of people get a kick out of it, well, that makes my day. Thanks for letting me know you're out there.

**Author's Note:**

> Several months ago, I read a fic where Derek was de-aged to about 3 and refused to put on pants. I immediately thought, "Oh! He wants to wear dresses!" It turned out he just wanted to be naked (we feel ya, little dude), but the idea of wee, dress-wearing Derek took hold and ultimately spawned this story.
> 
> This piece would be languishing half-finished in my computer without the exuberant cheerleading of [the_wordbutler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler). Thank you for your encouragement. And it would be a mess without the eagle eye of [gnomi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gnomi), who did beta work on chapters 2-4. Attribute any mistakes in those chapters to my insistence on last-minute tinkering.
> 
> If you enjoy peeking inside the minds of women with short attention spans, you would probably enjoy [my tumblr](http://hugealienpie.tumblr.com/).


End file.
